


Stories of Storms

by MateriaFlower1_1



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Family, Fate & Destiny, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Reincarnation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 22,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MateriaFlower1_1/pseuds/MateriaFlower1_1
Summary: She felt her heart pound. Once. Twice. Everything seemed to stop in that moment when she looked into his eyes. Cliché though it was, it felt like looking at him for the first time, like looking into the soul that she knew deep down had accompanied her throughout the ages. His eyes; they didn't only shine with courage and the battles fought long ago. There was love. Oneshot series
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda.
> 
> Enjoy!

_078\. Cycle_

The sword felt heavy in his slightly sweaty palms. The hot summer sun beat down on his bare back, and the beginnings of what he knew would blister into a burn was starting to itch its way down the layers of his skin.

But he couldn't take his eyes away from the sword, the sword that had changed everything in his little country life, and dictated for him a manifest destiny full of blood, sweat and tears. And not just those of his own.

The sheath was gaudy; too gaudy for his tastes. Aquamarine with overlays of gold and shimmer in silver and rubies, emeralds, and other precious gems he was too bumpkinish to know clung to it like limpets. It was so heavy in his hands. The weight of time, the weight of destiny. And the weight of all those bloody gems.

It had just been a custom. A custom for all the men turning sixteen in the villages surrounding castle town to have their own go at pulling the fabled sword as they finally reached the heady-heights of manhood. A fanciful dream that one, tall, handsome and strong, might pull the sword and a heroic age my dawn anew. No one had expected Link, a farmer's nephew so poor he wore his uncle's old clothes, from the farthest town from Castletown, short for his age and awkwardly clumsy, to pull out the sword. But pull it he did. Easy as if he were pulling a ripe apple from the orchard trees. There was a kind of uneasy, unprepared and hasty silence that tippled over the gathered, cheery crowd when he did it. They were all there to see their friends, drink in the town, and celebrate being a man, not watch as the tides of history shifted once again from boredom to action.

So Link was shuffled off with the sword and ugly sheath, and a notice that he'd be summoned should anything be amiss in the land. That he was to go back and stop working and begin training. His uncle had snorted at that, but promised Link could stay up later to train with his new, strange toy in the summer evenings.

And then, two days later, that glowing third of a triangle showed up on his hand as he slept, throbbing hotly beneath the skin.

Everything was about to change.

Because although Link knew very little about anything apart from farming, he did know some things about their land's history. He knew that a hero always appeared when Hyrule needed him most. He knew that Hyrule had suffered periods of treacherous darkness, followed by the most wonderful light - like their current time. And he knew that the princess and her knight always fell in love and married. Now Link was no great scholar, nor was he some great lover, but he did know that their marriages were never held in times of great peace, but those of great agony.

He pulled the top of the sword from its sheath and peered at the glinting metal below. The moment he pulled this sword from its sheath, the moment he learnt to wield it like a true hero, that was the moment that his future would forever change, and the moment he was destined to have a love built from the ashes of a realm.

The sword glinted the colour of the ripening peaches of the trees in the sunset. With a heave and a sigh, Link stood. And let the sheath fall away from the archaic sword.

..

Ashes cushioned every step he took and immediately covered his traces, they fell in his hair, they burned his eyes. The castle was roaring with cries of agony and hopeless barked orders. Link stepped with more confidence than he felt towards the chambers he'd been ordered to salvage. A deft jab and a swift slice to a lizalfos saw him on his way, and outside the door before he knew it.

He didn't even bother to knock.

"Your Highness, my name is Link of Faron Forest, and I have come to save you."

He looked across the bright, fire-lit room at the woman dressed in royal blue travelling clothes and wore a look of despair on her face. Their eyes met.

They really were doomed to a hatefully begun love, every single time. This Link could not break the cycle, but he hoped in that moment, as he was falling in love with the woman before him, that the next might.


	2. 101. Honour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Now, before this week's prompt, I just want to say something. I'm taking requests! So if you've got anything you'd like to see, any ideas at all, just leave it in a review and I'll see if it's possible for me to write it!
> 
> Also sorry about the delay... essays got me like *dies*
> 
> Enjoy!

_101\. Honour_

Honour was, in Link's opinion, such a weird concept. It was something that the powerful people bestowed upon each other, or the poor people the deemed worthy. The thing that no one could touch or see but everyone, one day, suddenly decided a person was full of.

It was decided that Link was an honourable saviour, but if they knew who he really was, he wondered if they'd say he was an honourable man anymore.

Navi has slithered under his hat for the night, when the moon had dipped behind the rolling hills of Hyrule Field and LonLon Ranch was wonderfully backlit so it looked more castle than a broken shell of a farm. That was when they first approached Link.

Link wasn't sure who they were at first. The voice was indeterminable and the face beset by beautiful eyes. But his figure was all man, and the way he sat really gave it away.

They spoke. It was awkward. Link stumbled over words he'd spoken since he'd been able to, and a hundred threads of conversation seemed to gather just beyond his fingertips.

And yet a week later, he hadn't been able to get that midnight meeting out of his head.

That meeting turned into another, and Link's stomach had been all aflutter. He felt somehow emasculated. That all the courage he was supposed to have was sapped from him the moment they locked eyes. Weak at the knees and tongue made of lead.

"Listen! You look like an idiot!"

Link picked the blue fairy out of the air one sunny afternoon as he rode by Lake Hylia on Epona.

He didn't even say anything as he threw the fairy back behind him. He didn't have any arguments.

"Hey! _Listen_! I'm just trying to help you out!"

"Thanks, Navi." Was his only reply, with a roll of his eyes and a wry smile.

"You'll thank me one day."

He didn't ever get to thank her. There wasn't anything to thank her for, anyway.

Link couldn't tell you what part of his stomach it was that seem to launch itself towards the ground as Sheik became Zelda, but whatever part it was, it must've been big. It must've taken his heart with it, too.

Whoever Sheik was, he wasn't Zelda. He just knew it. It was like the person he felt most at home with was also the one person he guessed he couldn't have.

Life, Link also realised at that moment, had an amazing propensity to suck.

He never really cared about looks, station in life or anything - just the soul that made them who they were.

So that's why Link wondered, when he was sitting in his throne and looking around at all the Lords and Knights and Captains who decided that he was such an honourable man, if they'd still think the same if when he looked into Zelda's eyes, all he saw was the red eyes of Sheik looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I just want to reiterate that if you have any suggestions of what you'd like to see - let me know!
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	3. 096. Crooked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda.
> 
> Enjoy!

_096\. Crooked_

Link sat heavily on a crooked, decaying step. Like the disappointing swirl of dust on the tongue of a freshly-opened oyster, he sat in the decaying hall of the soldier's barracks, feeling the rain hit the floor around him and his legs and arms and hands and feet numb from the bitter chill that crept in through the cracks lacerating every wall.

Was this what it was all for? Was it all for the carcass of a castle and the hollowed soul of Hyrule? Towns eviscerated, bones everywhere from those left unburied and lost to time, and barely the will to create anew left between them. A vast land, all but empty, and a few measly stragglers left behind.

Link knew their ceremonies were still going on behind him. A few dozen hastily created knights and a princess and an advisor so old she barely survived the journey here. It was a pantomime of a ceremony. Held to restore their faith, she'd said. But who were 'they'? And did they even have any faith left to restore anymore?

His hands were still caked in blisters and his feet almost wearing holes in his boots. He hadn't felt the agony and strain drain out of his bones in over a hundred years. Shoulders tensed from a burned too heavy, back broken from the work he couldn't do. And a memory shot to death, only giving him bursts of blue-roofed houses here and champions who fought and died there, and the smile of a princess one hundred years younger who loved him.

And all these feelings! All these things he felt, with no reason why! So much left unexplained, so much he'd done and knew he would continue to do with no good reason but the feelings that stirred in his chest. The agony he felt when he sat in the waters of Zora's Domain at a certain time of day and the heat in his chest when he stood at the peak of Rito Village and this warmth in his chest when he stood next to the princess — why, why, _why?!_

It was driving him crazy; The courage the goddesses cursed him with to drive him through the worst of times only fuelling this spiral into despair. And there would be no one there to stop it, nor anyone who could. It was burning, burning up his insides. Like a Malice flying around in an empty chest cavity that he just couldn't get rid of or bare to let go free.

A heavy drop of rain fell and landed squarely on his head. Link gasped in surprise at the cold, piercing feeling and was snapped back to a reality where he felt her presence before he saw her.

She felt like a breeze of freezing cold air on the hottest summer day. Cool, yet refreshing. Enticing, yet standoffish by nature.

And then he saw her. Dressed all in pink and in the only jewels they could salvage from the desecrated room she once called a home, but like the Princess she was fated to be, nonetheless. And that funny warm feeling glowed like a faint ember in his chest again.

"We have finished the ceremony. It was... productive, on certain terms."

Link gave a restrained snort, seeing no other fit response to what he had already known was going to happen. Besides, sitting here in the empty, damp, goddesses-forsaken ruins he fought and bled for to no avail, he didn't feel like saying anything worth expending the energy on.

"You were missed, nonetheless. Our hero, who saved us all."

'Hero'. Such a funny word. It's said they used to worship them as once-living gods, in ancient Hyrule, and that their impeccable moral-compass, kindness and power were unrivalled and characterised them wholly. But Link knew he could never join their ranks. Not having seen the things he'd seen; not having done the things he'd done. No, he'd have to drown himself in a river to wash off even half the blood that stained him.

"Sorry. I know you object to that title. But," she took a breath before the objection she knew would be coming and felt himself fight one down, a habit that felt somehow as though it were familiar. "You truly are one. I watched over you for one hundred years, and there is none more valiant in our kingdom today."

But the objections still played on Link's lips. All 'I'm not worthy', and 'I did some terrible things I didn't have to do', and the most pressing of all,

"Was it worth it?"

For once, the all-knowing princess was flummoxed. For once, she had to look away in troubled silence as she contemplated her response.

"Perhaps."

It was not what he expected. "We are low on materials in all senses of the word, and I had naively anticipated once that my homecoming would be less... empty than this. Yet, we are free of Ganon." She matched his listless gaze at the garden full of shrapnel yet to be cleared and empty, broken bodies of Guardians used as shields in Link's desperate climb of the castle. "Even if we do not live to see it ourselves, Hyrule will one day prosper again. I believe it. I must."

Link nodded. He still felt empty. He would always wonder if it was worth it, and even when the memories returned, he was always come to question his reality lest it all come crashing down in a moment with the waking from a long slumber or a sudden stab of pain to the chest. And even when, years later, he stood on a pristine balcony of the castle, overlooking the blue rooves of Castle Town with a crown on his head and a future king on his hip, he would wonder if he shouldn't have just stayed in his little Hateno home and married a local girl and given it all up for someone else, someone stronger.

But no matter what nightmares haunted him or what thoughts plagued him, he would never forget the tears that he and Zelda shared, amidst the fat raindrops and desecrated corpse of a castle on that day, so many years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	4. 104. Stormy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_104\. Stormy_

Every night in her dreams, she could feel another presence. She could almost touch it, like a word eluding her tongue or a cry never reaching her lips. She knew nothing, nothing but her theorems and words and books that only ever applied to the life she imagined was just beyond her windows. But for her, there was no word to see.

One stormy night, everything changed.

Her mother had gone for the month, off gathering something that she never specified, looking as radiant and youthful and beautiful as ever. Suspiciously so, Zelda had noted after several years of consistent beauty. The storm came two days of boredom later. Mother had always said 'never look out when a storm rages, or the lightning might strike you'. But Zelda knew she was wrong - the lightning would never strike her, it was more than likely to strike the tall trees surrounding them if it ever struck anywhere. So she flung open the wooden shutters and watched the rain crash to the green earth, the thunderclap high up in the midnight-purple clouds, and gazed eagerly at the heavenly brawl, waiting for the terrifying darts of brilliant white lightning.

The first bolt of lightning struck, flattened the trees before the tower, and like a ray of sunlight on freshly opened eyes, she could see. The boundaries of Zelda's world were finally being torn down. She'd never before seen beyond her trees, apart from the tops of trees beyond that. And now the entire world was open to her. Her heart began to beat faster and harder. She couldn't quite believe her eyes, and she didn't yet know if it were lucky or the worst thing to happen to her.

In fear, she quickly slammed the wooden shutters closed and turned her back on the brilliant fire in the sky, concentrating on the pitter-patter of raindrops and deep, monstrous growls of thunder. She dived into her hard, wooden, but familiar bed, and clamped her eyes shut. Anything could come now, any one of those terrible things Mother described could find her and maim her now. It was a unique feeling, but she felt horribly exposed. She feared that Mother was right - she had been stupid, and now she was to receive her retribution.

.

She could hear something - a gentle patting, or distant crashing in her ears. The vast blue stretch of water before her was sloshing more noisily now that the sound was getting louder, and more insistent. Suddenly, it was all gone. The blue water dissolved, cracked into a million pieces, and her eyes groggily opened. Light was splitting between the wooden shutters, and her muscles ached. She stood wearily on tender feet and stretched, yawning in a more undignified way than Mother ever let her.

For a moment, she wondered about opening the shutters, but the tapping seemed to have stopped now, and she thought it might only be in her dream. So she padded over to her wooden wardrobe and put on the blue dress and white apron as usual. She was almost done putting the pink ribbons in her hair when the tapping on her window began again.

With trepidation, she approached the window. The shutters creaked uneasily as she pressed them open with hesitant fingertips.

She barely had time to react before she saw something small, grey, and round flying towards her.

With a shriek, she ducked and looked behind her to see a small rock on the floor. Crawling over to it, she picked it up and examined it between her fingers.

"I'm sorry!"

Zelda shrieked again as she jumped up, and very hesitantly looked over the stone inlet, down to whatever it was below her. Was it some kind of rock throwing monster? Was it trying to trick her into falling— dying, even?

With a sharp gasp, she realised that he couldn't possibly be any kind of monster. He was beautiful, like the angels sent by the goddesses in her books. They were some of the only pictures of what she suspected this creature was. He was fair, with a handsome face that and skin shining against the post-storm sunshine.

"I'm sorry, my lady. I didn't mean to alarm you." His voice sounded quite different to what she assumed it would sound like. "I stumbled here after the storm, and I wondered who lived here - only I couldn't find a door." He was dressed all in a pretty shade of green. It was a colour Zelda approved of, she thought with a slight sigh and a tilt of her head.

She snapped herself out of it. "Are you... a man?" She asked, her shaking voice full of false confidence.

His laugh floated up to her like chimes on the wind. "I am. And you are a woman, aren't you."

"Of course I am." She replied indignantly.

"My lady — who trapped you in this tower?"

"No one did."

"That's not a joke - is it." She assumed his aside was mostly to himself. And even though she knew it was a joke, she was too deep in thought to really pay attention to him. If she thought about it, was she really free? Had she ever really had any agency in all this? It set off a chain of thought she usually chose to let rot and die of its own accord.

"My lady, please show me the way in. The sunlight is harsh and I would very much like some water."

Zelda sighed. Then she nodded.

"Thank you! Now, shall we construct some kind of pully? Tell me- how long is your hair?"

Zelda made a face at his stupidity. "My hair?"

"I- I Uh..."

"Did you read that in a book somewhere?" She asked incredulously, fearing that it was either that - or that these 'men' were just particularly stupid.

He looked up, rubbing the back of his neck in a sheepish manner. "Yes. Fairy Tales and all."

"Fairy...?" Zelda muttered to herself. But she shrugged it off, these Fairy's Tails were of no matter until she could help him inside.

"There's a door, set into the foot of the tower. It's about three metres to your left," she pointed out of the window, "you won't be able to see it, but the stone is far more hollow if you knock on it."

He moved towards the door, and in the ensuing silence filled only with the rustling of leaves, she heard a distinct, hollow knock. "I've found it! Can I rush it?"

"Rush- what? No!" She shouted down as he took a few large steps back and readied himself to run at it. "Just tell me how the lock looks, please!"

Her mother always had a set of keys looped around her belt every time she came tell Zelda she was leaving, and they had not escaped her notice. She had always theorised that the two larger keys were for the outside door - but she never knew which was for the larger door. She'd worked out which was for her door long ago and had made a pick for that out of a melted down old pot handle.

"It's large - one of those keys with two sections at the end. You know, like-"

"Yes! I know." Zelda frowned, looking around her room for something that would suffice for a lockpick. There - a wiry, metal hairbrush handle. She knew what the keys looked like from them being burned into her memory, long ago. It didn't take her long to bend it into shape. "I'm going to throw a lockpick out of the window, you can use it to get in. Then climb up the stairs and go to the door at the end of the corridor." Zelda threw the pick out of the window, heard a little thud as it landed, and heard him walk over to it to pick it up.

"I won't be long, my lady."

"I'm- I'm not a lady!" She called, but he didn't seem to hear - she heard the door swing open.

Her heart pounded as she paced the room, waiting for him to climb the stairs. She'd never seen the staircase, she didn't know if there were traps or tricks littered along them. But she did know that if he made it safely up the stairs, she'd be free. It was that very thought that gave her pause. Did she want freedom? She barely even knew what the concept meant in the context of reality.

"My lady?"

"I said already," Zelda hurried to the door, standing so close to it both palms came to rest on the roughly hewn wood, "I'm no Lady."

A pause.

"Then what shall I call you?"

"Zelda."

"Just Zelda?"

"Yes."

A pause.

"And who are you?"

"General Link, from the Army of Hyrule."

Hyrule... an army... "A General?"

"Yes." There was that bell-like chuckle in his voice again. It sounded rather pretty, prettier than she thought these men ought to be.

"Alone? Away from... Hyrule?" The place name felt rather comfortable on her tongue, she thought with a satisfied smile. The names of places had always been painted over or erased in her books unless they were ancient or abstract. A kingdom, just beyond her treetops? It felt bizarre, and yet she loved it.

"Even Generals can be without their armies, sometimes. Besides, it's peacetime."

She could not help but be thankful; he hadn't displayed an excellent prowess for intelligence thus far.

"And you are just Link, too?"

"Yes." She heard him shuffle slightly. "And 'Just Link' is wondering why you are keeping him outside."

"Oh." Zelda sighed to herself and put the pick into the door. It was now that the most fateful decision of her life was going to be made. This was it. The chance to turn back, have her quiet life with her mother forever more. Or the chance to discover what lay beyond her treetops...

She almost slipped with the speed she turned the pick.

Stepping back, she pushed the door back and looked at the man before her.

"There." Her mouth felt distinctively dry. "Better now?"

His smile looked more charismatic up close; he seemed to be repressing a childish giggle as one side of his mouth pulled up, and his eyes crinkled and danced in the shade where he stood. "Much."

She felt this odd sensation as she looked into those blue eyes when the crinkling subsided, and she could see it face in the height of its handsomeness for the first time. They were warm, full of courage even now, and unyieldingly energetic. As she looked into them, she saw a dark forest and a broad plain and an endless desert and dank caves and a friendly teal ball of light that was actually perhaps yellow, or perhaps purple, and a vast ocean like she'd dreamt of only last night...

It felt like seeing an old friend. Or perhaps more accurately, an old lover.

She felt her jaw was slack but paid it no mind. Something about the racing emotions and her beating heart made her unnerved; she felt as though suddenly, she was not entirely herself anymore. As though some thread of fate as sewn them together and that was a part of her she would never fully get back. This man would never be one she could turn her back on. She'd got her freedom, at the price of the freedom she'd found in her closeted room. Perhaps this was the danger mother warned her of.

A warm glow echoed in her hand. She raised it to see a triangular shape glowing there, mirrored in his left hand. His face was as gobsmacked as hers.

"You're the Princess."

"You're the Soldier."

They watched each other and stepped closer. Once, twice, three times. He took her right hand in his left and intertwined the fingers.

"It's like finding the final piece in a puzzle."

She nodded. "As though this is but one echo, with hundreds before it and hundreds to come after."

Nothing needed to be said. They both knew who they were now, what it meant. As though in this tiny room, they had both been reborn.

"Let's leave." She mumbled, and he nodded, letting go of her hand.

"Don't take too much, only what you really treasure. It's a few days ride until the castle."

But she was a few steps ahead of him, and tied her possessions into a small bag, lugging it over her shoulder. "The castle?"

He nodded a smile on his lips. "Yes, Zelda. There's the castle, with your parents inside—"

"-I have parents?" She frowned. "But, but Mother..."

He sighed and put an arm around her shoulders as he guided her towards the door. "I am sorry, Zelda. There's a lot to tell you."

She looked at him, eyes wide and confused and betraying her youth.

She cast one last back at her room, it's door hanging open, and the dark corridor with the few rooms her mother occupied.

Stepping over the threshold, she stepped out into a new life, a new world. The world she'd once dreamt of as a haven of freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	5. 112. Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_112\. Mirror_

The shards shimmered like sugared orange peel floating on the wind. Link had always been the happiest when the wandering tradesman stopped by Ordon Village. His pouches and bags were always laden with ribbons for the girls, fabric for the mothers, trinkets for the children, and sugary delights for all who wanted any. Link had always been the first to the orange peel. But now, he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to eat them again.

Zelda put a tentative hand on his shoulder, and she too watched the shards fly and twinkle on the wind - up, up, up...

They glimmered like the most delicious icing sugar for less than a moment, and then they were gone.

Link turned to look at Zelda. She felt his eyes on her, and drew her eyes away from the blue sky to face him.

His emotions, strong like a relentless ocean storm, balanced as though on a knife edge. He wrestled inside himself, the duality of his soul battling for dominance - the fight they'd been waging for as long as the twilight first covered their land. One warrior wild and free and at home in the trees; one warrior strong and noble and as old as the world.

Link felt numb, and then a feeling of calm wash over his body. The fight was over. He put his hand on top of Zelda's and squeezed it very gently. Her bones felt like bird's bones under his rough hands.

"Link..."

She didn't really need to say anything. He understood. Just as he'd understood when she helped him in the battle against Gannon, or when he'd first looked into her eyes, wolf though he had been.

It was like there was some invisible thread between the two of them, cans in their hearts that their emotions whispered in, and messages passing between the two. Just as it had always been, and how it always would be.

"We should leave."

Zelda hovered for a moment, unsure if he'd follow her - if he'd even take her outstretched hand. He did.

They walked, in step, across the uneven, bloodstained sand. There was a terrible darkness about this place - it screamed of magic old and new, aeons old experiments, and the blood of the innocents shed where the blood of just one should've pooled. Even the stone walls around them were all ruined and crumbled, as though they were the souls of the dead just begging to be released from their duty; to be set free.

The recent heartache only added to the pain of this goddess-forsaken place.

"We should destroy the prison."

Zelda's voice was as sharp as the shards of the mirror were in the stuffy desert air.

"Won't the Gerudo put up a fight?"

Zelda shook her head. "They've been laying low for years now. I doubt they'd want to reclaim a temple so bloodied even their god had abandoned it."

"How can you tell?"

Zelda's eyes met his, and that understanding look passed between the two again.

Just as he felt strength, drew on powers he never knew he had and managed to charm people around him into having courage they'd never have otherwise recognised, she too just knew these things.

"I can just read it. In the air."

"The divine powers. They curse us as they bless us."

Not another word passed between the two until they returned to their mares. One auburn and white and trusty; another of a shining brown coat and a haughty step.

The pair paused. The escort of three soldiers looked back at them equally as blankly, before diving into a bow.

The rider of the black mare was missing.

A look passed between the two, and the speaking was left to Zelda.

"Princess Midna has departed for her realm. She will not be returning in the foreseeable future."

Her words were short, perfunctory, but underlying was a tone of unbearable sadness. The bitter sadness of losing a dear friend, especially when you've done nothing to deserve that divine punishment. Although, Zelda mused as they began the long ride back to Hyrule Castle, perhaps it wasn't divine. Perhaps this was all simply bad luck.

It was night by the time they reached the castle. The soldiers took Zelda's mare and the riderless horse to the stables with theirs, bidding the Princess and the Hero a goodnight. He was trusty, they all believed. The most trusted man in the land. And so they have their Princess - soon to be Queen's safety into his hands.

If they knew the connection between the two, the intensity of emotions that burned between them, perhaps they mightn't feel quite the same.

"Link, would you like to... do you want to come into the castle?"

Link's eyes seemed to flash before her, and that glint of wildness she'd recognised when he was a wolf shimmered over his wide blue eyes. They were closed before she could see that untamed spirit again.

He shook his head. And she understood. She was the Princess, he was her Hero - and the world's. They were bound by their work in restoring Hyrule for now, and it was bound to be that one day, they would be bound in marriage. She knew all of this, and she knew why he could not be where she so desperately wanted him to be tonight.

"You know it wouldn't do any good, Zelda."

She nodded. More to herself than to him, she mumbled; "I wish it would."

Link laughed, lightheartedly. It had been only the second time she'd ever seen him laugh; the first time he'd smiled since the mirror had broken. "If we are to make this land into the land you and I want, you know that we must restore it before we marry otherwise it would never be done well."

Zelda sighed. Reluctantly, she nodded. She took a step forwards, and the two were mere breaths away from each other.

"Then please, kiss me before you leave. Something to keep me going, through all the nights."

He chuckled on a whisper and leant in close to her face. "Quite the romantic for such an upright queen."

His breath was hot on her cheeks. She couldn't tell if she reddened from the heat of his breath or what he whispered in her ear.

And then, he kissed her. Warm, gentle, and full of the unexpressed passion she simply knew he had.

Divine gifts; how curse-like they could be. And how good they could be when put to their 'proper' use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	6. rorriM .211

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Well... I've got a surprise for you all this week! It's something a little different, just read it with an open mind and please, let me know what you think!
> 
> Enjoy!

_rorriM .211_

The shards shimmered like sugared orange peel floating on the wind. Link had always been the happiest when the wandering tradesman stopped by Ordon Village. His pouches and bags were always laden with ribbons for the girls, fabric for the mothers, trinkets for the children, and sugary delights for all who wanted any. Link had always been the first to the orange peel. But now, he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to eat them again.

Zelda put a tentative hand on his shoulder, and she too watched the shards fly and twinkle on the wind - up, up, up...

They glimmered like the most delicious icing sugar for less than a moment, and then they were gone.

Link turned to look at Zelda. She felt his eyes on her and drew her eyes away from the blue sky to face him.

His emotions, raging like a relentless ocean storm, balanced as though on a knife edge. He wrestled inside himself, the duality of his soul battling for dominance - the fight they'd been waging for as long as the twilight first covered their land. One warrior wild and free and at home in the trees; one warrior strong and noble and as old as the world.

Link felt numb, and then a feeling of latent rage washed over his body. The fight was over. He put his hand on top of Zelda's and removed it from his arm. Her eyes shifted ever so slightly from hopeful to withdrawn. The bones lying under her pale skin felt like bird's bones under his rough hands.

"Link..."

He looked at her, but his eyes weren't really seeing. There was some kind of feral rage that lay dormant in the deadened depths. Zelda froze, and Link felt her body tense. The last thing he would feel from her; that heartbreak, and sadness, and the fear.

It was like there had been some invisible thread between the two of them, cans in their hearts that their emotions whispered in, and messages passing between the two. When his emotions had tipped over the knife point and fallen to rage and anger, it was as though that connection had simply been severed; the string cleft in two. The bond of a thousand years utterly vanished between their two souls in a single instant.

He could tell by the way she froze for just a second that she felt it, too. He couldn't bring himself to feel bad for her.

"We should leave."

Zelda hovered for a moment, unsure if he'd follow her - even holding out a hand as of hoping against hope that he might take it; that her feeling had been wrong. He didn't take it. Her feeling had been right.

They walked, he a step before her, across the uneven, bloodstained sand. There was a terrible darkness about this place - it screamed of magic old and new, aeons old experiments, and the blood of the innocents shed where the blood of just one should've pooled. Even the stone walls around them were all ruined and crumbled, as though they were the souls of the dead just begging to be released from their duty; to be set free.

The pain of that day's twilight only added to the unpleasantness of this rotting corpse of a temple.

"We should destroy the prison."

Zelda's voice curt and brusque in the stuffy desert air.

Link gave her a reluctant glance out of the corner of his eyes. "Won't the Gerudo put up a fight?" What he didn't say was what he felt more strongly; that this was the only connection back to a place now lost of them. Perhaps he might use it one day to get his friend back.

Zelda shook her head. "They've been laying low for years now. I doubt they'd want to reclaim a temple so bloodied even their god had abandoned it."

Link quelled the urge to call attention to her pomposity and instead asked a simple question that he knew she'd try to explain and that he wouldn't have to care about the answer too. "How can you tell?"

Zelda's eyes met his, but no understanding fell between the two. He looked at her blankly but thought of the woman he'd been forced to let go. And he already knew that there were plans to bind him to this queen which he wouldn't be able to escape from when he really only wanted the other queen.

"I can just read it. In the air."

"The divine powers. They curse us as they bless us." His tone was so bitter they both knew that he was ruing the curses more than counting the blessings.

Not another word passed between the two until they returned to their mares. One auburn and white and trusty; another of a shining brown coat and a haughty step.

The pair paused. The escort of three soldiers looked back at them equally as blankly, before diving into a bow.

The rider of the black mare was missing.

A look passed between the two, and the speaking was left to Zelda.

"Princess Midna has departed for her realm. She will not be returning in the foreseeable future."

Her words were short, perfunctory, but underlying was a tone of unbearable sadness. The bitter sorrow of losing a dear friend, especially when you've done nothing to deserve that divine punishment. Although, Zelda mused as they began the long ride back to Hyrule Castle, perhaps it wasn't divine. Perhaps this was all simply bad luck.

It was night by the time they reached the castle. The soldiers took Zelda's mare and the riderless horse to the stables with theirs, bidding the Princess and the Hero a goodnight. He was trusty, they all believed. The most trusted man in the land. And so they gave their Princess' - soon to be Queen's - safety into his hands.

If they knew the connection between the two, the intensity of emotions that burned between them, perhaps they mightn't feel quite the same.

"Link, would you like to... do you want to come into the castle?"

Link's eyes seemed to flash before her, and that glint of a soul she'd once known like her other half shimmered over his deep blue eyes. They were closed before she could see that kindred spirit again.

He shook his head. And she understood. She was the Princess - but not the princess he'd wanted. She was gone, gone forever, and he blamed her. There was such a vast gap between the two; like an ocean of endless waves of silence. Zelda couldn't take it. The tears that glistened over her eyes only served to fuel Link's anger and give him a morbid satisfaction. They were bound by their work in restoring Hyrule for now, and it was bound to be that one day, they would be tied in marriage. She knew all of this, and he despaired in it. She recalled the words of another Zelda who'd married a man in love with another woman. That Zelda had been found tied to an apple tree.

"You know it wouldn't do any good, Zelda."

She nodded.

Link's face was cold and stony. "If we are to make this land into the land you want, you know that we must restore it before... before we... _marry_ otherwise, it would never be done well."

He could not hide his repulsion. Zelda bit the inside of her bottom lip to stop the cries rolling from her throat. How cruel, that she would still love this man who despised everything she was. What a terrible fate lay in store for her.

"Please..."

"But I can give you something to remember, on all those lonely nights."

His breath was hot on her cheeks. She couldn't tell if the blood drained from her face due to the harsh look in his eyes or what he whispered in her ear.

And then, he kissed her. It was dispassionate, cold, and a tear fell from her eye. One drop, fat and like a juicy pear in shape. It was quickly joined by other companions.

Divine gifts; how wonderful they could be. And how much like a curse they often were, when the world was flipped as though in a mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehehe... just let me know what you thought of this one! It was just an idea that I got one day, so please tell me if I should carry on experimenting or not.
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	7. 106. Commit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_106\. Commit_

Today they rose, just as they did all other days. The servants entered the adjoining bedrooms, waking the royal couple and rousing them from their beds as though in an eerie mirror of each other. Zelda stirred just moments after her husband, and they were dressed, washed, and made presentable for the day before they were ushered to the dining room, where breakfast and letters were waiting.

Zelda watched her husband as he ate and read a letter from Ordona Province. He was handsome now, so unlike the mere boy he had been when they first married, just scrabbling into adulthood. He'd been but a younger soldier then; eager, and eyes alive with the fury of battle. He was promoted to General as the old one died, and soon after that, they had been pushed into marriage together. The couple were only twenty when they married, and yet even that was too old for the liking of most.

Even as she watched him, he didn't look at her once.

Then after breakfast, they were separated for the day. That was generally when they wished each other well - and the first time they spoke all day. But Zelda couldn't help lingering on slightly as they parted, watching his retreating figure. There was a certain fondness that sat over her heart, one that she'd never given any weight to before.

She turned, walking away from him towards the throne room, and the audiences that awaited her there. It was a job that she had loved, but as she slipped into an arranged marriage that wasn't what she hoped for, and a life that was slowly becoming almost obsolete, she found it more monotonous than ever. Even the great cataclysm to awaken the Triforce had been but a skirmish in hindsight; barely sixth months worth of fighting and the aftermath swiftly concluded. Suffice to say that the pair of them would be a mere footnote to history. It was not as she had anticipated when she was just a little girl, running around her mother's knees and the lady's chairs.

It hit her quite firmly on this morning of all mornings.

A long while later found Zelda sitting amongst her favourite books in the library - old epics, and tales of times long ago. Of the Queen who'd become a Sheikah, and the king who travelled through time. It allowed her to think about the life she wished she could've had; as though discussing arbitrary laws wasn't all the progress she could make, and as though there was still a chance for recklessly falling in love with a brave, handsome knight after a whirlwind romance.

"I found you." A voice startled the young Queen - so much so that she dropped the book she was holding. He laughed and sat down before her. "Sorry."

Zelda narrowed her eyes at him as he came to sit across the table from where she'd been sitting - before she'd jumped like a coiled spring at his voice. She smiled, perhaps reluctantly. "It's fine."

She picked up the book from the table and closed it, smoothing a hand over the leather cover.

"You never come here except when you're sad. Is everything okay?"

Zelda stared at him for a moment. He had noticed? She thought he never noticed. She thought that all he knew was battle, and the army, and his general friends in court and the stories of women in the barracks that bothered her more than she would've liked when he came home late, and drunk.

"Yes, I-"

She couldn't quite finish her sentence, but just stared, wide-eyed at the man. It was an affront to the stiff regularity of their life to which she'd become accustomed.

"Zelda... you're scaring me." She couldn't tell if that was shyness or nervousness that crept thickly into his voice. "First, you stare at me over breakfast, then you hover in the corridor, then you can't even finish a sentence. And now you're confused? It is strange behaviour for the wielder of the Triforce of Wisdom."

Link was always straightforward, always to the point. He'd never grown to speak like a true noble or bow to their customs, and Zelda appreciated that. But there was the underlying hint of a riddle there that bothered her. Zelda still continued to stare. And then, despite her better judgement, she smiled as the joy spread through her chest like the warmth of a newly kindled fire on a cold winter's night. "I never knew that you noticed these things."

He chuckled. "Of course. I'd be a pretty terrible husband if I didn't, wouldn't I?"

They'd never talked like this before. Not in all the three years they'd been pushed into marriage. They'd barely known of each other's existence for two months before they were wed; Zelda often wondered just why-oh-why it had to be so urgent. Perhaps if they'd been allowed in a room with just the two of them more than three times, it would've been the whirlwind romance she so desired. If they'd met when the world wasn't destroyed, if they hadn't both always been surrounded by ministers and eager ladies and however many more interfering people-

Zelda knew it was no good to think like that. Goddesses knew that she spent enough time wishing that so many things had been somehow different she was wishing her life away. But these dreams always haunted her at night. And no matter how much she took in his handsome, wonderful appearance, she knew that no matter how much she'd grown to love him in her own, distant way, they could never be what she deeply yearned for.

Silence hovered between them. "Thank you."

He smiled at her. That cheeky, mischievous half-smile he reserved for only a few people, and that gave away the unyielding youth in him. "Are you just now realising that I do actually love you? That I wasn't lying when I said that I'd always 'love, honour and obey' you?"

Zelda looked down at the table, and then up at the man before her again. Deep blue, wolfish eyes, a rogue smile, straight nose and good skin; blonde hair that had once been a mess under a green hat but now lay somewhat neatly under the modest crown he'd insisted on. And the blue and gold robes that swathed him, so far from the green tunic she'd first seen him in.

She felt her heart pound. Once. Twice. Everything seemed to stop in that moment when she looked into his eyes. Cliché though it was, it felt like looking at him for the first time, like looking into the soul that she knew deep down had accompanied her throughout the ages and would forevermore. His eyes, they didn't just shine with courage, and the battles fought long ago. There was a love there that she'd never seen before, or perhaps just hadn't looked for. She recognised that same look in the reflection of her own eyes, too.

How long had they spent - silent, distant - just because they never talked? How long would it have continued, if he hadn't been watching her? She smiled at him, shyly, like she'd wanted to when they'd been just twenty-two, and she nodded.

"I would not be lying if I repeated those words now, either."

He beamed in response, like the young boy at heart he was. Her heart began to beat with a tripping, fluttering gallop, and she giggled with a youthful cadence.

She was lucky; she had come to love the man she had been married to. Her Link.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! I thought I'd start with some full-on romance for this series.
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. As I said above, I'll be updating every Wednesday, so please do stick around for more. Thanks!


	8. 096. Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Something again a little off-piste this week - let me know what you think.
> 
> Enjoy!

_096\. Forever_

Strangely, numbness was the only thing he registered. The numbness in the tips of his fingers, the numbness that made his feet feel like stumps of broken wood. His sword was barely even grasped between his hands anymore. He felt it slipping and sliding in his palms but was powerless to stabilise it. His arms didn't have the strength anymore, and he couldn't stand still. In short, he was broken.

Even more strangely, he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. It was like he'd been pushed so far he'd been broken. Like he'd ascended to another plain where all he was really doing was watching this boy who he sometimes shared sensations with get beaten down, over and over again.

So, this is dying, was it?

His breaths came in pants, and they were the only thing he could really hear. Soft and short pants, like a child who'd just run to the city gates to check if their parents are back yet. He felt his age, for the first time in many, many years. He felt his youth. Just seventeen. He only acknowledged now, for the first time in his life, that at one point, he could've had a future. He only now seemed to realise that life for him could've extended past this night. That after this battle, there could've been a 'what's next?' not only 'The End.' He could've found a home, found his friends, found what living meant. Found what it meant to be him.

Living, however, wasn't an option anymore.

He felt a shift in his palms again and the sword clanged to the rocky, unravel floor below him. With the metallic clash ringing in his ears, the world seemed to snap back into focus.

He felt the sweat on his body, the far drops rolling down his temple and the ash and dirt clinging to his sticky skin. He felt the heat from the ring of fire around them, heard the shaking earth and flitting wings of the fairy and the desperate cries of the Princess' voice. The sky was alright behind the cruel mountains; a savage skyline that didn't belong in Hyrule. He looked up, eyes strained and tired. The beast was walking over to him, delighting with every step that his prey wasn't moving anymore.

Link fell to his knees. He couldn't move, not anymore. It was like some strange force had put a warm hand on his shoulders, helped him to his knees, told him that it was okay. It was almost over.

The princess was screaming in the background. She deserved better than what she was going to get, he knew. They all did. Perhaps in the next life, they might know each other better. Might explore the strings that tied their souls together better.

Without fear, he looked into the beast's eyes.

His throat felt like it'd been sliced open. "Come on," he rasped, barely recognising his own voice. "Do it."

He didn't even feel the pain, not after the sword ripped through his skull and blood sprayed over him like a warm fountain.

A ragged pant, and the beat of another heart.

Blackness, and then all-encompassing light.

Everything had ended, and yet it was only just beginning.

There was no name, but it knew who it was. They felt their soul being threaded to another like two rag dolls. Two hearts beat in tandom, and then sealed into different cases.

He opened his eyes. It was all twilight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was the ending too weird? Let me know what you guys thought! I thought that since last week's experiment went down okay I'd try something else new here - but let me know if it's completely terrible! ^_^'
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	9. 065. Paradise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_065\. Paradise_

The grass was always green in summer. And the sun was always hot. It was paradise, pure and untainted. A blue sky and not a drop of rain to dampen the spirits. Cool breezes touselled perfectly made hair and carried on it the scent of life, bursting with colour and joy. Fresh, at the peak of its life; untamed energy.

The sun was warm on his skin. Sleeves rolled up, cloth soft against his skin. Heavily, he sat on the grass. The strands were long and needed to see the edges of a sheep's teeth.

It was perfect. It was home. It was summer.

He lay back and watched the clouds dance past in an achingly slow waltz, each pair tantalisingly far apart like two lovers who can never quite be. The sky a witness to all the perfection of the land and even as he closed his eyes, he could still feel the master of all things that lived spying down on him. The eternal inferno in the sky; the sun.

Every day, the same paradise. Every day, the same idyllic life.

"Are you coming?"

A voice as soft as the melody on a harp. The same as always. Fiery hair that shines in the sunlight and a kind of beauty that he knew some appreciate. So kind, so caring, so accommodating. And everything wrong with his life.

It's not enough. None of it is ever enough. Such monotonous paradise bored him to the point of desperation; to the point of tears. He didn't want a perfect life without any fight. He wanted a messy life full of real emotions. He didn't want to feel guilty for sadness, he wanted to give into it wholeheartedly. He wanted pain and love, delirious joy and crippling depression. He wanted the rain to ruin his day and the clouds to race across a purple sky. To find out what it might be like to live in the inferno in the sky or the brightest star at night. He wanted so much more. He wanted it all.

He stood, limbs unburdened even by all the farm work he did. It felt wrong. It was all, so wrong.

His words almost choked him in his throat. "I'll just be a minute."

A minute more of pining, and then back to reality. His version of reality. Children that all looked perfect and never screamed. A farm that maintained itself, a village that was too nice and a world without an ounce of chaos.

His wife turned and walked away, red hair shimmering pure gold in the sunlight. Behind him, was nothing. Behind him was the land no one had ever been to. He glanced over his shoulder. Grass covered tumbles that could perhaps one day be hills, and then a forest. The edge of paradise, perhaps.

His wife didn't turn back. He couldn't bear to follow her, back to a life of the same boring nirvana.

And that is why he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, even our idols can kinda be dicks sometimes. Poor Malon. But then again, how far would someone with undiluted courage go to get what they truly desired?
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	10. 094. Alcohol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_094\. Alcohol_

The bar was busy tonight. Chatter bounced around the wooden, crowded room like an excited Chuchu, and the warm candles lit the room with a fiery glow. Link sat amongst a table of soldiers, all out of uniform for once, and all talking loudly, beer already warming them from the inside against the frigid winter air.

"Didn't you knock over all the armour in the armoury last week, ey Hans?" One of the soldiers laughed, and the others joined in, drinking deeply from their beer mugs. Link laughed along with them, drinking the bitter ale. He felt the alcohol flow through his veins, warming his bones, and gave his mind a nice, free, hazy feeling. He felt light and carefree. So different the daily life they experienced under the heavy weight of metallic armour, never dulled by the fury of battle. He sighed as the men chattered about other stupid things they'd all done, settling into his newfound feeling of bold freedom.

"Alright there Link?" One asked Link; Mark, his friend. Link looked over at the man sitting across from him. A generic face with generic colouring, the only outstanding thing about Mark was his kindness. He'd shared food with Link on his first, lonely night at the Barracks, and they'd been friends since.

Link nodded. "Just fine." He replied, a small smile pulled across his face by the beer's hazy glow.

"Oh, I know what's on his mind." Marcus grinned from further down the bench, his leering smile exaggerated in the candlelight. "It's the lovely Princess."

The soldiers all laughed, and the tips of Link's pointed ears turned pink.

"Of course, that pretty face would get him anywhere!" Another sniggered, and Link drank deeply from his mug to try and ignore them. "Look at those big baby-blues and handsome looks."

"Careful Simon - sounds like _you_ want to be the princess! Fancy wearing a dress, too? I bet you'd look lovely in pink."

"Oh shut it, Marcus!"

Link watched the two bicker across from each other and looked over at Mark. They laughed, as did many others who watched the pair like a tennis match, whilst they had one of their infamous arguments like that of an old, married couple

"Link," the young boy next to him, Colin, began shyly, "what is the princess _really_ like?

The two fighting went quiet, and Link was suddenly aware of all 15 other soldiers staring him down intently.

"Well…"

It was true that Link had been at the castle for a decade now. And it was true that he had been quickly promoted. And had now been the personal guard to Princess Zelda for 5, going on 6, years. And that the two were very close. And that when Link had been made a knight, there had been talks of more being possible between the Princess and her knight. And that there were many more things that the others didn't need to know about.

Link looked up and down the row of eager faces. He took a deep gulp of beer from his mug and placed it down carefully on the bench.

The silence was deafening. He was also suddenly aware of how they had been making almost all of the noise in the bar.

"She's nice."

"Oh, come on!"

"That's not even an answer!"

The soldiers complained wildly at him, and many scowling faces looked back at him.

Link drank deeply again. He didn't actually have a very high tolerance, contrary to popular belief, and he'd had a couple pints at this point.

"All right, all right!" He shouted, and they all fell silent again. "She's prettier than you'd believe, cleverer than the rest of us-"

"We know that already!"

"-is funnier than you'd think and can drink more than _all_ of you put together!" Link drained the bottom of his mug and stood, holding up a rude sign to the men as he left, ignoring their insults and protestations. He knew that if he said anything more, he might lose his head, and if he stayed there, then he was bound to let something slip. He wasn't stupid. He liked having his head on his shoulders.

He walked jovially out of the bar, and round the corner back to the barracks. There, he left his cloak in the room he and Mark shared, and then wove through the corridors of the barracks until he was in the servants quarters of the castle. Sneaking around in the dark, he hid around the corners and crept into the servent's corridors. He knew this route like the back of his hand. Even though he had a room in the castle to keep his weaponry in during the day, he wasn't allowed there at night. 'It wouldn't be proper', they'd said. It would cause a scandal, bring shame to the princess' name. Link smirked at the thought as he pushed the secret door open to the Princess' room. Better the scandal they didn't know.

"Zelda."

He was almost barrelled over by the Princess as soon as he entered, dressed only in a thin night-dress.

"Link!" She held him at an arm's length, like a grandmother inspecting her grandson. She looked so beautiful, he thought, cheeks slightly pink and honey blonde hair splayed all down her back, eyes shining bright with happiness. She narrowed those bright blue eyes at him. "Are you drunk…?"

Link snorted. A little. "Me, drunk? Not at all! The other soldiers were, though." He grinned, in what he hoped was a roguish way, and Zelda only rolled her eyes, then took his head in her hands and kissed him - in a way that his friends would never, ever know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this one isn't really set in a specific time period, but I suppose it's more fun if you just leave it to your imagination!
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	11. 111. Hum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_111\. Hum_

The echoes of words unsaid seemed to deafened her in the silence. Zelda sank to her knees, a wreck, and the Ocarina fell uselessly to the ground. A chip flew off the mouthpiece.

She sobbed into her hands, throwing off the white gloves and covering her face with her hands.

_No, Zelda, please! Please! Don't do this, no-_

She couldn't even look into his eyes as she did it. It was the last thing she would take from him, but the last thing she could do to help. She felt so empty inside.

She had sacrificed all for a kingdom that now lay burnt beneath her.

He looked so sad, she thought, the broken blue eyes never leaving her mind as she sat there, curled up, amongst the clouds.

The whispers of wind seemed to be playing a sweet melody but she didn't care. No one was here, no one would hear her cries anymore. For the first time, selfishly, she knew she was alone and that she could cry all her fears away with nobody watching. It felt like eight years of pain, all gushing out of her at once. The people she'd lost, and the people she'd see for the first time in years momentarily. The friends she'd made that would never know her. It made her heart burst, as though the goddesses around her were trying to push and pull it all at the same time. This suffering, this heartbreak...

This is what she'd tried to save him from. She'd tried so hard to do what was best for everyone, what was best for him. It crushed her, but she thought it would be better in the end. She had a sinking feeling that she was wrong.

This was the world she'd wanted to linger in, just for a while longer. The world where she could acknowledge that she was scared, anxious, and full of the emotion she could never otherwise let on. The world where she had friends she cherished, could do the things she'd always wanted to do. Where she could love the man she wanted more than anything else.

It had not gone to plan. Those final memories she'd wanted to savour —

His eyes. They looked so ruined. As though the last spark of hope had been stolen from them...

What had she done?

What kind of monster was she?

She didn't have any tears to cry anymore but her voice ripped painful sobs from her throat.

The man she loved would never see her again. He wouldn't remember any of it - she knew, she'd tried to save him all that pain by taking away those memories of death and violence and burdens that seventeen-year-olds should never know. He wouldn't come searching for her at the castle. He'd never stumble across her path again. She would always know him. Always love the man who would never quite come into existence. She would love him with this soul, and the last soul, and all the souls she'd ever have in the future - but at least in this lifetime, he would never know.

It tore at her.

He may as well have died, for she felt sure that this tormented existence would kill her.

She knew just how it would go. He'd come to see her, walk up those garden steps clad in green and with a youthful grin of victory on his face. He'd tell her all his discoveries. And then he'd leave. And that would be all. He'd never stop to double take, never stop to think. He'd just leave the princess and her castle and go back to his peaceful life in the forest.

She comforted herself by telling herself he'd be happy there, with his friends, away from the trauma he'd seen in this life.

She told herself she was doing it for the right reasons - but the look in his deadening eyes as he faded away told her otherwise.

Zelda was silent now in wind-noisy clouds. She hugged herself on the floor and glanced over at the Ocarina. There was a crack in the glossy blue surface. She knew the feeling.

Cautiously, she put a hand out too it, felt the warm buzz of magic on still lingering on the surface.

She looked around one more time. Looked at where the man she desperately loved had stood, and picked up the humming instrument with two unsteady hands.

She put it to her lips, and played.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	12. 028. Split

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_028\. Split_

He flicked a bead of sweat off his brow. Bags packed, Epona ready, Link stood in the still fields surrounding Clock Town on his own. This was the land he had called home for three days lived over three years. Horrors beyond those that haunted his last trials plagued him throughout this one, and yet now all lay peaceful. Only the grass blew in the wind now; no monsters to attack him when he was tired and ready to give up, no horrors contorted by twisted time to try and ruin him. So quiet was it, that Link felt confident that something _would_ happen, no matter what.

That was a feeling Link knew was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. The constant urge to look over his shoulder, never feeling safe in the same spaces for too long. The holes in his memory and the cruel tricks Time had played on him had twisted him into a being far different than the youthful shell he was trapped in let on. He was a grown man, over twenty years old in body and much older in mind, but he was limited to the life of a child.

It had been so long since he remembered what it was like to be normal. To feel inside like he looked to the outside world. To be what he was in the purest form: a child, who was perhaps slightly above average with a sword and below average at making friends. To exist in a world that was as kind to him as he tried to be to it. It had been so long that any of this had been the norm, in fact, that he could feel himself becoming bitter. He knew what he sounded like; he knew how it looked. But it did not change the fact that the goddesses, so cruel in their eternal benevolence, had treated him as a disposable plaything. And so had their dear princess, too.

Perhaps the bitterness was re-emerging because he knew the only place he could go after he left this blissfully calm land. He couldn't return to the forest of his childhood; he would die. The ranchers of LonLon Ranch no longer knew him, and he could not guarantee that they would take such a shine to him, this time, without him being their saviour from certain ruin. The Castle was the only place left to go to, and the Princess who lived therein.

She stole from him. Stole away an entire life. The lives of the children born then; the new relationships formed. The joy that had been forged in a ruined land and the protection of the Sages - all of it, _all of it_ , gone. And it was _her_ decision. One that she made alone, without even asking anyone else. One that forced Link into a body that he no longer recognised, driving him away.

The fact that he had loved her only added insult to injury.

Looking back at the high walls of Clock Town and the soothing music that streamed out over the top, Link wondered what it might be like to stay. Live here, under the bright blue sky and warm sun of Termina, with the people who he had come to call friends and their widely acknowledged saviour. He could be happy here, in amongst a people he cherished. He could forge a life like this, exploring more of this wonderful, odd land.

His eyes dropped from the walls. He would forever be an outsider here. The bitterness he forced down would alway haunt him if he never addressed its root cause. He could live a facade of a happy life here, that was true, but he would always be cleft in two: one-half content, the other searching for answers and panaceas for the pain and for _home_.

No, he could not stay here, he thought.

But as he clambered on Epona and left, he felt as though he were leaving a shadow of himself in this strange, calm and beautiful land. He never would be able to tell if that shadow was his happier self or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	13. 032. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_032\. Waiting_

Brow furrowed, hands pressed together and sweat forming between them, Zelda clamped her eyes shut against the swirling furore around her.

"Zelda, _please_ , we have to go! We need to! Hilda is already on the boat with Mother, we need to join them!"

Zelda's middle sisters' voice was muffled against the sound of the thundering rain outside.

"No, he will come." Even Zelda could barely hear her voice, but she had been saying the same mantra for days now with no alteration. They knew what she said without even hearing the worlds.

"Zelda, this is madness. _He will not come_. We must leave - now." Her father's voice rang stern in her ears but she did not waver; did not even open her eyes.

"No. He will come."

But it had been three days of this cursed, torrential rain, and no man who dared to call himself a 'hero' had appeared. No youth clad in green, as the stories of all said; no man great enough to pull the sacred sword from its pedestal entered the land.

Hyrule was dying. Drowned in its prime. Zelda knew that, and yet she still had hope.

"We must go!" Her sister screeched, hysterical in the panic.

No one else remained in the castle now, just the three of them deep in the depths where the Master Sword was kept amongst the sacred windows of the Sages of the Golden Age.

"Zelda, this is madness. You _must_ come with us."

Zelda finally opened her eyes, the light painful after days of nothing but mantras chanted over and over amidst infinite blackness. Her father and sister before her looked maddened with grief; it clung to the deep bags under her father's eyes and the stringy texture of her sister's brunette hair. They had all been quite the surprise, being brunettes and not blondes like the royal sisters of old. Then again, everything about this age had been quite the surprise.

"He _will_ come. No Hero has ever failed to appear at the time of a cataclysm, and this hero is no exception. He _will_ come, and he _will_ save us."

"But- But... Zelda, that's ridiculous!"

Her sister looked at her as though she had lost all her senses, but Zelda knew better. She was the Sage of Time, an understanding of how it worked ran in her veins. And besides, she could almost reach out to this man she was connected to via the strong pull of fate. He would come, she was convinced of it.

"It is not. I know he will come, I can feel it."

Her sister and father looked between each other, exasperation clear on their strained faces.

"There is nothing to say this will not be unprecedented- _please_ , come with us now."

"No. He _will_ come; he _will_ save us." A wave of holy anger stirred up within her chest; she _knew_ he would come, why didn't they believe her?"

"Maybe this time, _we_ are the solution, not some boy in white tights. Please, Zelda, _please_ , come with us!" Her sister held out a hand, wrinkled with rainwater, but Zelda ignored it and clasped her hands in prayer again.

He would come. He would come. Please, goddesses, send him to Hyrule! She played the mantra over and over in her head, fighting back tears of frustration. He had to come. She knew he would. The Hero always came for his Princess, and there was no reason why now should be any different.

A voice. So quiet amongst the fury outside, but a voice nonetheless- she could not make out what it was, but she could hear it all the same.

"I hear a voice! I hear the voice of our salvation!" She cried out, eyes flinging wide open. "Leave, now, please. Join Mother and Hilda on the boat, I will join you when the Hero arrives."

Her sister and father looked at each other cautiously, and then nodded, leaving the room. Zelda smiled to herself as she resumed her prayers, reaching out to touch the voice that called out, wordlessly in her mind.

_Run. Run._

The voice was as soft as the touch of a mare to her foal; as warm as the sun rising on the pleasant summer days. Zelda smiled and gave in to its embrace, ignoring all it said.

 _There is no hero. Run, you fool_.

But Zelda realised it too late. Her eyes opened, and it was not reality that greeted her.

A boat tossed on a stormy sea and a mountain reaching high above the ocean. Waves stretching out beyond where the eye could see. A sword plunged into a new land, and the faces of two too young to be there. A castle decorated in white and crystal. Machines far beyond the limits of this world. A world that developed into an age Zelda could not comprehend. And through it all, the Triforce. Blue and Green united. A princess and her blonde; a farmer and his Queen; a Captain and his darling.

.

 _Bang_.

The water crushed her before she even had time to register the blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, shush, I know the king is the one who stays behind but whatever! This works better for this scenario... and I didn't really think through the details, let's not lie here.
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	14. 098. Chosen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_098\. Chosen_

The bowels of Hyrule Castle were a place to be both respected and feared. Zelda had never been allowed down here alone until her father had died, and even now, the guards let her go on alone through the maze of rooms with caution only. But she had trained in secret with these men; they knew she was no princess to be kept in a glass box. No, this Zelda, she had decided early on, would be a Zelda who could fend for herself. And if it were chosen by the gods that there would be a crisis in her lifetime, she would help her hero, not sit idly by.

The ceiling dripped moisture to the floor with a loud thud. The shortsword by her side burned into her skin with a cold kiss. All around her lay relics of pasts long forgotten; the corpses that told stories of those now lost to history. She didn't know what she was looking for; some trace of belonging, perhaps, amongst the vestiges of the past. Advice or help might spring from an old book or sword, or crown put down here with the other memories too painful to think of any more, and locked away down the centuries.

Crowns with no heads to put them on anymore lay countless around the room. Her hand brushed against a crown imbued with ambers; the Twilight King's crown. He'd died at just the same time, too. Just further along to the damp, rotting table were more crowns and tiaras beside them - one filled with sapphires, another rusted with its gems fallen from their rightful place and strewn around it, and a third with diamonds shining pink in the half-light the windows at the very top of the high room let in. She picked up the tiara. It looked recent; barely one hundred years old. The pink glow of the diamonds lured her in; almost tempting her to put it on her head. But she snapped out of the revere; perhaps the bad luck of this queen might not follow her if she resisted the lure of the shining gems.

Walking further back along the room, she passed cradles lined up by cradles. All the children never born or gone just after birth. She remembered hearing of one queen who suffered the loss of more than fifteen children. One of the cradles was dotted with old, unfaded blood; dark and ominous against the white, faded paint. Zelda ran her fingers along the edge of the wood and prayed that she would never put a cradle of her own down here.

And then, looking up from the virtual graveyard at her fingertips, she saw a door. Obscured behind a well-placed chest of draws, but there nonetheless, she walked towards it. The frame was wooden, moth-eaten, and rotted on the top left corner, but seemingly had been there for centuries. Pinned to the door was a note written in old, outdated cursive and faded through the years.

' _Enter at your own peril. Face yourself and accept what the goddesses have planned_.'

Zelda held her sword out before her as she entered the room, so dark she left the door open as the only source of light. She knew she should've brought a torch with her.

Inside was nothing. Scanning the room for any signs of danger, all she saw were several giant spiders, but none looked to be poisonous or venomous. Putting her sword away, she stepped closer to the only object there: a mirror. Dull and offering a poor reflection, Zelda stepped in front of it with a frown on her face. Nothing happened. What could the note possibly be warning her of?

And then, the image changed. Within the blink of an eye, Zelda was not greeted with a slightly distorted image of her own face anymore, but a great likeness of herself... in thirty years' time. She looked to be in her early fifties, wearing a much more sumptuous gown of whites and pinks and light mauves; white gloves up to her arms and golden jewellery adorning her at each wrist, ear and across her neck. Zelda stepped closer to the reflection, her old self doing just the same. Behind her... that was... was it? No, it couldn't be. But... was it really?

That was Link, the boy from the farm. The boy who she was sure would be a private forever; who would live in the barracks, shy and alone until he was older than this reflection. And yet, there he was. Dressed in forest green, in a version of the captain's armour that was tailored to meet his likes exactly. Oh no. Oh _no_. She was not going to live this down amongst her ladies. The princess- no, the new _Queen_ \- married to the farmer's boy. But there was no denying it was him. From the way the left corner of his mouth flicked up, to the green dot below the pupil of his right eye, that was Link. And on his back... was the Master Sword.

So, that's what the goddesses had planned for her life. This is what she would have to accept.

She looked down to their hands; there, two different thirds of a glowing triangle glared back at her. Wisdom and courage incarnate. The back of her own hand tingled, and her eyes looked down in panic; there was no glowing triforce mark there. Just an itch under her skin.

Looking back to the twisted reflection, she watched the pair of them interact so seamlessly. That Zelda took a step back without looking and fell into the arm he held out for her. His arm fit around her shoulders as though it were made for it. They smiled in unison and looked into each other's eyes with a look that seemed to fit more on a youthful twenty-year-old's face. They seemed so... happy. Despite whatever calamity would befall her Hyrule, here they were, happy and content and smiling despite it all. And, alive. Alive into their fifties at the decision of fate. It was almost as though a great burden was lifted off her shoulders in that very moment. A weight she didn't know she'd been shouldering had finally been lifted. At the very least, she had thirty years of life left to fill.

But what would happen? What would take place in those thirty years that could leave her in such a position?

Obviously, a cataclysm of some kind was coming. Chronologically, that made sense: it had been almost one hundred years since the last tragedy, and if time were indeed a cycle, it would reach its zenith within her rule. If she had to guess, it would come soon - within the next decade. She could plan for this. She could train for this. She could protect her people and see them through anything, if only she had the time to craft a solution.

The man next to her, however, held far fewer answers in his smiling face. She knew Link, of course she did. She'd admired his looks and acknowledged that yes, out of all the newer recruits he was indeed one of the more handsome ones. And yet, to have him as a husband, to love him so dearly... perhaps _that_ is what would take thirty years.

Were they happy? When would they fall in love? Would it be easy? Would they suffer? How many children would they have, and when? Zelda felt herself go queasy when she caught herself picturing what their children might look like. Oh no - could she ever look into Link's eyes again? Knowing the things that would, innevitably pass between them...

She had so much she wanted to achieve in life, so much she felt compelled to do. Could she do it all, if there were a cataclysm and after the realm finally recovered, she spent years pushing out children? The thought made her heart sink. And yet, the look in her older self's eyes told her that unhappiness did not wait for her. She just didn't understand how quite yet. The lives of other heroes lay mostly in the room before this one; thrown away, painful to remember, and eaten up by time as their idealised form became mythology. Would she become just the same? One of the countless Princesses and then Queens with the same name, serving only to be wife and damsel-in-distress to the dozens of Heroes? She had trained too hard, fought to establish herself as capable for too long to do nothing. She knew that she would not sit hopelessly in the event of something terrible infecting her land, and yet sickly doubt gnawed at that certainty with every second longer she looked at the happy couple beyond the mirror.

She was disgusted with them. They gave her the solution to a problem she didn't even know she had and sparked an existential crisis in response. A thousand questions raged in her mind, and it frustrated her.

Gripping the pommel of her sword tightly, she locked her jaw and turned away from the happy couple abruptly, storming out of the room and the graveyard of cradles and the haunted crowns and tiaras of the past, and up the winding staircase to where the guards stood.

She flung the doors open with more force than necessary, betraying the anger that bit at her. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she looked around, dismissing the soldiers until her eyes caught on one in particular. One blonde with a smile that curled up on the left side and a green dot below the pupil in his right eye.

"Wait- Private Link, I have a task for you."

She fought within herself. Between what she must do, and what she wanted to do. She wanted to send him away, far away to Termina or the goddess-forsaken desert of the Gerudo, and forget he ever existed and marry one of the many boring gentlemen she met. But she knew that to weather the coming storm effectively, he must know what was coming, too. And no matter how hard she tried to banish the thought from her mind, she could not help but look at his face and know now that she was looking into the face of her future husband. That she would come to look at him with eyes filled to the brim with a love she had never felt before; that their children would perhaps look very much like him; that he would be at her side for at least fifty years and maybe much longer.

He watched her with eyes wide and naive and full of questions. He was a pretty boy, really, but oh so young for twenty and yet to see much of the tragedy that would harden him into a man.

Zelda took a deep breath. "Link, go down into this basement and proceed to the end of the room you will find. Look for the door with the note on it, and go inside." He nodded, said the customary response, and hurried off. But she caught his arm before he left, and said what she knew would set an irreversible chain of events off. So this, she supposed, was as the goddesses willed it? The future they had chosen for not only her, but him, too?

"Come and see me afterwards. In my chambers, tonight. I shall dismiss my guards and ladies and await you."

He looked surprised, and those distinct eyes widened, and she even watched a faint blush dust over his cheeks. He really was so young. But then again, apparently they had thirty whole years at least to live with each other.

She waited for him that night nervously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, clearly I have a thing for ZeLink and mirrors haha
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	15. 039. Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Apologies for my lateness, but I am here!
> 
> Trigger warning: vague details of domestic abuse - I don't want to make anyone upset so please don't read this one if you think it'll make you uncomfortable!
> 
> Enjoy!

_039\. Run_

She knew it was selfish, but she just couldn't hold on anymore.

The fire crackled distantly in front of her, like it was miles away from just below her fingertips.

"My Lady?"

Zelda blinked slowly a few times, and looked to the man kneeling next to her. "Please. I told you, call me Zelda. I'm not the Queen anymore."

Even as she said the words they seemed to bring up bile that got stuck and congested in her chest.

The man nodded almost imperceptibly and took off his green hat. "I'm sorry, Zelda. I'm just so used to having ears around us all the time."

She nodded. She understood. She didn't need to say anything, but she wanted to fill the silence before her thoughts caught up with her. "It is nice, isn't it? Having the liberty to do whatever we want."

Link looked to her out of the corner of his saddened blue eyes but said nothing.

They sat almost next to each other but aeons apart on the stumps of deadened trees. Even the cold didn't seem to penetrate her through the void of emptiness. She felt as though she had simply lost all feeling; not a touch, not a slap, not a word could reawaken a feeling in her.

"Zelda..."

"You know why I had to do it." She begged him, and they only needed to look into each other's eyes to see that she was right.

She had no choice, in the end. It was either the monarchy and death, or fleeing and life.

He drew a heavy sigh. "I know. I just..." he looked away from her. "I thought you had a plan."

His voice was quiet as a whisper, but she couldn't hear them in any way other than a booming shout.

She knew. She thought she'd had a plan, too.

"I know what I am doing, at least."

It was a poor attempt at consolation, but it would do for him.

Him, the lowly servant who'd been born the one she wouldn't ever be apart from.

And her, the queen who'd been forced into a courtship with a man who beat her behind closed doors until one day...

_"No! Leave me alone!" She was sobbing through her pleas, praying to the goddesses in her minds. This was it, she was convinced. This was her final moment. She, Zelda, the Queen of Hyrule and the direct descendant of Hylia, was going to be killed at the hands of a crazed man and his unnatural definition of what love was._

_But as she fumbled around for some sense of safety, she found a letter opener in her hand and brought it down upon her attacker._

_The door flew open and with a muted scream she saw the red everywhere._

_"Zelda?" It was Link, and thank the goddesses it was. He was the only one to never turn a blind eye to her screams, to help treat her bruises. "Zelda, what have you done?"_

_She didn't remember much after that. Even the attack was only coming in flashes, beating her mind with it over and over and over—_

"I know where we can go. Don't worry, Zelda." Link looked at her with a worn smile on his face. There was a trace of blood on his cheek but she had no idea from what. "But before we do, we need to stay here for the night. It may be a very dangerous journey."

Zelda tilted her head questioningly.

"There's— I—" the words seemed to be hard to get out. "I'm from the forest. From the _other side_ of the forest."

Zelda looked at him through heavy lashes. She knew the stories. But she questioned him anyway. "Where might that be?"

He shook his head. "There are so many times that I've been like this - born an orphan - that I'm not sure where _I_ actually came from."

Zelda nodded. She knew the feeling, sometimes. Sometimes she forgot which sister had been born to her in this life, or if it was a brother, or if she was alone. Unluckily this time, she had sisters. A naive, baby sister and another, sickly sister to whom everything would now be left. The room painted with red and an open-mouthed body of a monster and all hell to pay.

"Then we'll go there." Zelda said simply, and drew her cape tighter about herself. "Your friend was very kind in lending me some of her clothes."

It was one of the few things she remembered.

Link's face drew tighter. "Yeah. I'll miss Malon. We grew up together. My other friends there, too."

Zelda blinked and ignored the tight feeling in her throat that only made her feel even sicker. "I shall miss my sisters." It was barely above a whisper. She would never be there to explain it to them, nor could she ask for her sisters' forgiveness. She would simply disappear, eventually being swallowed up by the annals of time, and that was that. It was as though she really had died up in that room of her castle.

"Zelda, you know we can't go on being who we are, don't you?" His voice was low and full of apology.

Zelda nodded. "Don't worry. I know."

—

The very next morning they rose early, and become different people. She cut off her long, blonde hair and he left the green hat behind, and they donned the wedding rings that surely should have bound them one day anyway. They were Mark and Louisa, from Castle Town, searching for a new life. The only ounce of truth bound up in their elaborate lie.

She felt slightly sick every time they lied and lied and lied to the people who would help them in their new life. The clerk who 'reissued' their marriage certificates, or the kindly mayor who allowed them to set up their first farm in the land beyond the forest.

Even their children called them by a different name.

"Mamma, there's someone here to see you!" It was their eldest, Alice, who called her as she worked in the field.

"Zel, I'll go first."

They were the only two who never stopped calling each other by their name. It was a small comfort, but the only one they could cling to in their life.

A great troop of soldiers on white horses surrounding a dignified litter approached, and Zelda's heart began to beat like it only had done once, many years ago.

A few tears escaped her eyes and she fell to the ground, bringing all of her children close in her arms, keeping them nearby.

If that wasn't a friendly visit, if that really was the Hylian crest, her crest which she hadn't seen in so, so long, then this was the end for her. Just when they'd finally regained their happiness, it was to be ripped away. She sobbed quietly into her son's shoulder.

"Zel, it's..." Link seemed to be pale, as pale as he had been before they'd had a life working under the sun and he'd been as confined to the castle as she'd been. "It's your sister. Greta."

He gave her a helping hand up and took over minding the children, mumbling something to her that she assumed was a sanitised version of the truth. He was always better at that than her, anyway.

Zelda saw it now. The Nohansen crest on the side of the elegant litter. No, it was a carriage. So, some of her plans had gone through, after all.

And there she was, standing sickly against the warm summer sun, and looking oh so dead in the eyes. Zelda wondered if this is what she'd looked like, even before everything happened.

"Zelda?"

"Your Royal Highness."

Zelda did a curtesy, and was careful not to look in her eyes.

"Zelda, I'm not here to punish you." Her sister had come closer to her now, so they could have a conversation only they could hear. "We all know what happened - the servants, they all knew what was going on. You have a Royal Pardon."

Zelda slowly tilted her head up to meet her sister's gaze. It was like staring into a dusty old mirror. "Please, come home."

Zelda swallowed thickly. "Greta, this is my home." She looked back over her shoulder. "This has been the home I've made for over fifteen years. I thought I'd never go back, so I moved on."

Greta looked past her shoulder to the young family behind her. "I know. "

She looked so ill, so weak. "Why have you come, Greta?"

Zelda felt the tears constantly pushing against the rim of her eyes.

Greta couldn't look at Zelda this time. "Because, I'm not in the best health, and I have no children." Zelda's heart gave an uncomfortable jolt. "I wanted to adopt one of your children."

Zelda stepped back, and again, and again, until she was standing with Link and their four children.

"You came here to take my children away?"

Greta could not meet her eyes.

"You mean our Auntie came to take one of us to be the next queen?"

"Or king!"

Her children bickered amongst themselves quietly, but Alice had been the one to inherit the famed royal wisdom.

"It is for the country, Zelda."

Zelda shook her head, and only felt Link's arm as though through a thick blanket.

"I spent my life in service to the country one way or another."

"But that is what we were born for."

"What about Eva? We have another sister!"

Greta swallowed and looked away again. "Taken. By the Gerudo. Most of her body found by the gourge."

Zelda was only still upright because Link was holding her that way.

"No." It was the mantra she whispered to herself over and over again. "It... you can't... no."

But the husk that was once her sister did not weep. She merely stood there, and examined the children before her.

"So I see you really did marry the servant." There was a tone in her voice that irritated Zelda.

"Yes, I did." There was no point in arguing; she merely answered through gritted teeth.

"And you have such fine children."

Zelda's eyes widened. "Don't- don't!"

Alice stepped forwards. "I have a solution."

"Alice, please—" link began, but Alice merely stopped him with a look.

"I will come to Hyrule for sixth months of the year, and remain here for sixth months of the year."

Zelda breathed heavily, but could not deny the slight warm sense of pride in her chest. She was indeed her mother's daughter.

"I accept." Greta's desperation manifested in her quick reply. "Please, pack quickly and come. We have far to go."

And so it came to be that Zelda watched as her daughter disappeared in a carriage, rolling far away into that land that swallowed her soul. They had been on the run for so long, hidden so well, and it seemed that even then their truths were never buried deeply enough.

"She will be fine, Zel. I know she will."

Zelda spared him the sarcastic look, but she knew that he was just trying to cheer her up. It worked - with his and their son's efforts, she was smiling again in no time. But her heart still ached for Alice.

Perhaps, with some luck, the bad luck of they three sisters would be confined to their generation only.

She hoped desperately that Alice wouldn't have to spend her life on the run. Something in the sun's shining and her heart's renewed beating told her that she wouldn't have to worry much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I may re-write this at some point... I'm not sure, what do you guys think? Only, I wanted to include some kind of fairytale aspects to lighten up the saddness, I've got some really sad ones coming up and I don't want to make multiple in a row sad!
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	16. 032. Study

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Enjoy!

_032\. Study_

.

_The Hero of Time: History's most mysterious Hero._

_Chapter: A Brief History of the Hero_

_Early Biography_

The Hero of Time lived from roughly 20BV to 16AS, as speculated from extrapolations from that era's Princess Zelda's, later Queen Zelda IV's, diary. The Hero of Time is said to have been a young boy, clothed in the ever famous green tunic and hat, with blonde hair and blue eyes - much like the Princess herself. And yet, records also exist of his being a full-grown man, quite contrary to the image of the boy hero.

_That's what happens when you mess with time._

It is unknown what the Hero was called. Some sources have suggested the name 'Gulley', others have shown 'Peter', and less have suggested he was indeed nameless. For the purpose of this literature, he shall be referred to as 'Hero', or 'the Hero'.

_He was called Link. He was the first Link of Hyrulean birth to save the land from eternal darkness._

It has been said in folklore for generations that he grew up in the Kokiri Forest, an ancient forest that was known for inhabitants that never grew up, and remained a child for all their years. It was also once the home of the Great Deku Tree before it was moved to a better position in the Faron Province. This is where it is speculated that his fairy companion came from. Along with the myths of the children of the forest, there are tales of competent fairies, able to speak and interact with Hyruleans. It is unsure what name this fairy of the Hero's had, or what gender it was. However, there is evidence for it being Cyan in colour, unlike the pink of more common healing fairies.

_Her name was Navi_

It is suggested that in about 7BV, the Hero first visited Hyrule Castle, then placed in Castle Town, where he met the 10-year-old Princess Zelda, who helped him and guided him on his quest.

_As Sheik, only._

_._

_First Quest_

It is uncertain why this incarnation of the hero is called the Hero of Time, as there remains little evidence that he meddled in time. Instead, it is known that he traversed the six Temples of Element, and upon awakening the Sages, defeated the Beast King, Gannon. It is in this documentation that allusions to the boy hero becoming a man occurs; some have thusly theorised that he travelled in time to complete these tasks. However, given the wider implications of time travel, it has been deemed unlikely to have occurred. Instead, the references to his being a man are attributed mostly due to a passage of time having occurred.

In detail, these temples of element remain very similar to as they are now - if, in different locations, with different sages.

Firstly, the Sage of Light was then a Hyrulean named Raru, whose light temple was under the Temple of Time, then also in Castle Town. It appears that Raru was the first sage that the hero freed, and he may have had some connections with an Owl, also referenced to be cognitive and capable to speak by the writings of Impa, the last Sheikah.

The next temple was the Temple of Forest, the sage of which was then, oddly, a Kokiri named Sara. This sage is an oddity for being the only child amongst this particular collection of Sages.

_Her name was Saria, and she was over a hundred years old._

This temple is similarly an oddity for having been in the Kokiri forest, and near to the Lost Woods. For more information on the Kokiri, and unravelling the facts from the tightly woven myths, visit the Children of the Forest chapter.

Next, was the Temple of Fire. This temple remains similar to the current period, lying dormant under the cold volcano of Death Mountain. This Sage was too one of a different race - Darunia, King of the Gorons during this period of history. Many scholars have noted that perhaps the racial diversity shown in every sage was a deliberate creation of the goddesses, as opposed to the masked, Hyrulean Sages of ethereal bodies that can be seen in the desert around four hundred years later, in the accounts of Queen Zelda XXI and the Hero of Twilight.

_But now, they are gone - transformed once more into fleshy forms._

This pattern is similarly observed in the Water Temple, now merely a blocked off ruin under Lake Hylia, and the Zora sage - the Princess Ruto, mostly known for having perished soon before she was to take the throne.

_She never died, but took a different name upon ascension._

The final two Temples are mostly speculated to be a myth, as they do not exist in this current world. The Temple of Shadow, and the Temple of Spirit, supposedly in Kakariko Graveyard and the Gerudo Desert, yielded the Sages of Shadow and of Spirit, respectively. The Sheikah race supposedly gave the famed Impa, the Last Sheikah, as their sage, whilst the Gerudo Princess and former consort of Ganondorf, Nabooru, was the Sage of Spirit. Yet, given that these figures are known for different endeavours chiefly, it may be a documentation error in placing these two as the final two sages. For debate over this matter, see the chapter entitled _The Elusive Lives of the Sages of Shadow and Spirit._

Regardless of who the final two sages may have been, or if they indeed even existed, it is known that from here, the Hero was able to reach and defeat Gannon, who had been transformed into a beast from his Gerudo form of Ganondorf.

_._

_Speculated Second Quest_

After this first quest, it has been surmised that the Hero, now a confirmed hero and bestowed the title 'Hero of Time' by the Princess and a general Hyrulean consensus, may have journeyed once again.

There is apparent evidence in the said Princess' diary of the Hero leaving Hyrule, on a quest to 'The ends of the world', in order to 'find his dear little friend.' From this infamous quote, many have speculated that this friend was a Kokiri he was fond of, some pointing to evidence of the Forest Sage, Saria. Others have suggested the later Wind sage, Fido. A small minority have even suggested that this quest was to find his fairy companion; given the relatively short lifespan of fairies, however, this is unlikely. Hypothesising that the aforementioned quest lasted for four years, with allowance for the transition from boy to man, the fairy may have died at the journey's end.

_Navi didn't die. She found him again, years later when he was older and had much more power._

Despite the uncertain reason for the journey, there suggest some evidence that the Hero ventured into Termina, and helped to solve issues in that land. It is unknown whether he lived in Termina for long, and exact details as to what he accomplished there are vague, due to the destruction of Termina approximately five hundred years ago.

.

_Life after Heroics._

Although details on the Hero of Time are scarce throughout his apparently short life, details become even more scarce on any more journeys after his heroics.

Sources differ as to when the Hero returned from Termina.

Some sources state that he returns after only a few short weeks, grows up with the Princess in peace, and after becoming Captain of the Guard, he also married Queen Zelda IV and was the father of Queen Zelda V, Princess Sara, Prince Darius, and the little documented and allegedly sickly Princess Navia. Upon taking the throne, the Hero took the name 'Link', upon being prompted to change his name. For a comprehensive history of King Link I, in his life as King, refer the chapter entitled _The Hero King_.

_This may be true, for one Link. But his name was never changed._

However, documentation has arisen of a ghostly apparition during the Hero of Twilight's era, in the form of the Hero. It has been speculated that he was, in fact, a Stalfoes, and there remains little information on this speculation, with research ongoing.

_That another Link, who, in such anger at the dark world his was trapped forever in, willed himself over to the parallel universe of the current timeline. He only wished with all his might that he may find the peace he'd worked so hard for. And yet, by a cruel trick of the goddesses, he arrived long after all those he knew were dead, and the world had changed so far as to plummet back into darkness. With nothing to do, and being ineligible for death, he faded. He became a Stalfoes and taught those who took up the mantle of hero next techniques to aid them in their quests. He was a pitiful shade of a man and collapsed into dust, not a hundred years after taking his skeletal form._

Zelda closed the heavy book carefully, running small hands over the shiny, manufactured blue plasticy cover of the book. She'd watched others around her read this book with boredom and hatred, blindly taking in the knowledge they'd recall vaguely during their exams and never again. The descendant of the Hero's spirit in their class hadn't even realised who he was yet. Yet Zelda knew there was far more to this hero. If she hadn't had the gentle voice of her foremother, Queen Zelda IV, to tell her all that was wrong, or misspoken, or misrecorded throughout, she would've thought she'd have felt the same way.

She hoped that, if she studied well and hard, and became the best Queen that Hyrule had ever had to offer, even if her fellow classmates had no idea who she was. One day, maybe she could retcon all this misspoken history with the Royal Histories - a book containing the true version of all of history, kept a secret from the public's eyes. Maybe then, if those around her knew all the wild twists of the truth, they could take pleasure in this study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. I suck at making up time period names. BV? Really me? Ah well!
> 
> Please review if you've got time and follow for more. Thanks!


	17. 016. Divorce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> Hello! Now, a few weeks ago I said I'd be doing something with what Guest wrote in a review - that Link-centric unrequited love scenarios are... appalling, at best. So I thought I'd try and fill in that gap, for once! Maybe not for once? I'm not sure, I don't have an exhaustive knowledge of *all* the fics on this site!
> 
> Enjoy!

_016\. Divorce_

Adventure.

Even thinking about the word, adrenaline seemed to flow through Link's veins. The promise of excitement, seeing things he never could've dreamed of, meeting the people he'd come to love. The feel of his heart pumping away under his tunic and the electricity in his blood as he spun his sword in his hand, holding it out and ready for battle. A jab here, a slice there and a fatal slash; the life and death dance he knew better than anyone else. Undefeated across all of Hyrule.

Undefeated in battle, but life has a way of making up for your strengths by making your weaknesses utterly crippling.

Link let the arm he'd raised lazily above his head crash down onto his mattress with a dull thunk. It bounced back a little bit on the springs. He sighed, and rolled this way and that for a moment, groaning in the face of the morning sun, before finally getting out of bed. He'd never been a morning person - he found the bright sunrises grating - so he'd decided that if he left the curtains open just a little, let the sunshine shine onto his face, he might wake a bit easier. It had worked, but he didn't feel any better about it. When he'd been questing around Hyrule the adrenaline and need to go on had made him into an early riser. He didn't have a choice in the matter on those summer days sleeping under the stars.

He missed those days. Looking up at the night sky and tracing shapes, animals, faces in the starlit blanket above him, eyes wandering about for a roaming star he could wish on. He missed everything about them.

Washing and dressing and eating a simple breakfast was as monotonous as ever, and he was only the second person out amidst the fields in the early morning dew. An awakened few words to his fellow villager and the work began.

After it was all over, he'd had a choice. Two roads lay before him - each one he knew would've ended up at the same destination: misery.

One road was the one he took - return to his countryside village, the life of farming with the two hundred other people he lived with. Monotonous, banal, even, but safe. It was the life he'd always expected to lead before he'd known what adventure and destiny could mean; he had grown to a certain level of happiness before - why couldn't he do that again? He would marry the neighbour's daughter, they'd have kind children and grow fond of each other and all their little family would gather before the fire on cold winter's nights. What could be objectionable about that? Nothing. For some, that was all they wanted. But Link had been thrust into the wild, and he had relished the taste of it. Misery was all that would really linger in his heart is he took that road. Buried away, but still peaking through the built-up layers.

The other road he could've taken would've led him to the castle. To the army, to be a Lieutenant, then a Captain then a General, and stand hubristically at the top of a tall tower of bodies. To live at the heart of the city, the city of a million or more, who spent each day bustling about and had much more complex lives than he could've ever imagined or tried to understand. They dealt in objects he'd never seen, the women wore silks he'd only caught a glimpse of once, in the desert. The silks that he still remembered vividly from her, the woman who haunted his every waking hour, the Princess. The Princess who would've caused him so much misery.

She was beautiful, cold, and immovable. She stood alone, tall and upright and as though she were carved from marble. Cold were the blue eyes with which she critically surveyed the world; and that impossible smile that he tried so hard to coax from her whenever he was given an audience with her after it was all over.

But they had been closer, once. When he was guiding her across Hyrule to where she needed to go, sleeping away the summer nights under the stars with her at his side, only a naked sword separating the two. All that time he spent trying desperately to find her when she'd been taken from his side and how hard he'd fought to get her back. She'd laughed at his jokes back then. Smiled at him. He'd always assumed that her eyes always looked so cold - explained it away with the moonlight or the reflection of the water or simply the colour of her eyes in the shadow of her eyelashes. The thought had only come to him months later that perhaps he'd been wrong. Perhaps she was as manipulative as they'd said behind her back. It was a cruel truth, and one he hated to acknowledge.

He remembered their first audience when she'd been freshly was and cleansed from her travels, her hair shining like a stream of gold down the waterfall of blue silks she wore. She was the most beautiful person he knew he'd ever see, a part of his very soul seemed to be reaching a hand out from his heart towards her—

She cast him barely a look throughout the entire meeting. She thanked him perfunctorily, offered him the Lieutenancy, and then commanded his exit. He remembered the unique feeling of having his heart shattered to a million tiny fragments in one suffocating, elongated instant that lasted a thousand years. It was as though part of his soul was divorced from himself in that instant, that in his open-mouthed reply he'd exhaled the part of him that'd been reaching from his heart for her.

That woman. The woman he desired with a passion stronger than his passion for adventure. In this world where he reigned supreme as the hero of this period, there was only one thing he wanted, and one thing he couldn't get.

Fate was such a cruel bastard.

The hot sun shined on Link's back and he pulled off his cotton working shirt. His riches maybe bought him a mattress, sturdier walls for his home, clothes that didn't itch him — but they didn't buy him happiness.

A hand held out a cup of water before him. He looked up. The pretty redhead from further down the village smiled at him.

She wasn't the Princess. She couldn't even dream to come close. But she maybe, she'd be half of enough.

"Thank you."

He felt those last few strings of being, the strings which tied who he'd become to what he truly wanted to be, finally sever. The life he so desperately wanted to have was divorced from the life he now realised he was going to have to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like I said - credit to my reviewer Guest who pointed out that in unrequited love scenarios, it's almost always Zelda who loves Link. I just hope I did your ideas justice!
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	18. 072. Triumvirate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda.
> 
> This one's happier, and thanks for reviewing!
> 
> Enjoy!

_072\. Triumvirate_

It was as though they were flying, very suddenly. The wind in their hair, caressing their skin and whispering the comforting words they'd always wanted to hear.

Two halves of a whole flew, or perhaps were still amidst a storm, brightest lights on the darkest of all days.

And then, a breath. Warm, comforting, like the caring sigh of a lioness over her cubs. Then the air turned crisp like fresh autumnal days and then wild like the wind that whipped through forest leaves.

Nothing.

Blackness.

An eternity of waiting.

..

Bright lights, and the feel of cold air on his skin. As the last drops of consciousness leaked from his soul, Link knew it: this was a new life for him, but it was his last.

..

Sweat drilled on his brow, he flexed his fingers around his sword pommel and brought his shield higher up his face as he crouched lower. He couldn't tell if the flashes of heat were from the fires around him or if it was shivers of dread from the monster that towered before them.

He, the courage that held them together in the middle. Zelda, the Princess, the wisdom that guided them standing to his right, a pace behind them. Ganondorf, the raw power that drove them forward to Link's left.

The monster roared before them, rearing on its hind legs. It had taken the shape of perhaps a man, perhaps a woman before. A seductive manifestation of all the evil that had culminated in the sacred realm, the jealousy that plagued the holders of power and the apathy that had almost supplanted wisdom and the recklessness that had overpowered courage. It had turned their realm into a hell, dogged their peoples for generations.

Now, it was finally time to come to an end.

Ganondorf put a hand to Link's shoulder, and he felt a renewed power surge through his tired body. Zelda chanted behind him, and he felt a blue aura grow around him. Without a thought, be charged to meet the giant monster.

They'd been going for hours. Link knew that this was it. This was the last chance.

Kicking and climbing his way up the body, Link fought to keep clinging onto the rocky skin, approaching the black mockery of a triforce on its head. The monster shuddered as Ganondorf commanded the fire around them to chain the beast into submission, however briefly. It shuddered for a moment, writhing in pain before it lashed around, roaring and trying to lunge towards the Gerudo leader. Zelda chanted louder than ever, and the protection around Link seemed to grow, its pulsing blue light illuminating anything he could use to hold on to. He grasped around madly, yelling out as he dropped down the monster's shoulder. He clung on for dear life, ignoring the slight shriek in Zelda's voice as he hung on. Gannondorf's voice rose up again and called out a different enchantment that Link had never heard before.

_女神の恵みを超え、_

_雪の力を召喚して！_

The monster cried out again, but the thrashing stopped. Link chanced a look down and saw its legs and long arms trapped in pillars of ice.

"Now, Link. Now!" Zelda cried, and the blue light around him faded.

Grunting furiously, he clambered up the shoulder and kicked his way up onto the beast's bald, barely humanoid head.

"I'm here!" He cried back and pulled off his left glove. The pulsing golden triforce on the back of his hand shone so brightly it was blinding in the grim night. He saw two other beams of golden light appear behind him, subtle at first but growing and growing until they encapsulated the whole of the monster.

"Do it now!" Ganondorf shouted, and throwing his shield behind him, Link took his sword in both hands.

Everything seemed to slow down. The monster shifted and stirred a little below his feet.

One, two steps back. A deep breath that seemed to be the only thing he could hear any more.

Then he was running forwards, everything back in normal speed and the headache of a million sounds all around him. Launching himself into a running jump, he drove his sword down into the black Triforce on the monster's head.

Everything was golden.

For one blissful moment, it was as though there was nothing in this world. No screaming pain in his arms, no blood trickling down his side or shivering in his bones. No painfully throbbing triforce on his hand, or light so bright it hurt his eyes and made him scream.

Just a warm golden light.

And then, he was falling.

He heard Zelda and Ganondorf calling for someone from somewhere near him, and Link felt the ground beneath his back.

He couldn't see anything. It was as though he'd become just a spectator in this event he'd been so active in before.

A gentle hand was placed over his heart. A few murmurs, a refreshing glow in his veins, and Link sighed softly. He looked around.

Eight coloured lights danced around him. And there were— there were people in them. Zelda's hand rested on his chest; their eyes met, and she gave him a smile that said all he needed to hear.

Ganondorf stood next to him. The proud man watched as the monster before them wasn't sealed away, but was being held by the eights lights. It was almost beautiful, and something he felt that he'd seen a hundred times over.

The clouds above them parted and three lights - green, blue and red - flashed down. As though a lightning bolt had shattered the very earth beneath them, the monster's prone corpse was gone. At long last, the sky began to clear.

A drop of water fell on Link's cheek.

"Zelda?" He murmured. But when he looked up, it wasn't from her eye.

Drops fell and fell over him.

"It's raining." Ganondorf stayed simply, looking around at the place where the eight lights had been with a kind of uncertain familiarity on his face.

Link grinned. And then, he laughed. "It's- It's raining."

He couldn't have said why he was laughing, but it was like some kind of deeply held sorrow had gone. He felt free; finally free.

Zelda laughed with him, her laugh melodious as a sweet lyre song, throwing her arms around Link as he finally sat up. Tunic drenched from blood and sweat and now the sweet tasting rain, he clung to Zelda like she was the only lifeline in the world. He saw a hand thrust before him, and looked up to a see a chuckling Ganondorf extending a hand to him.

He took it, and the three of them rejoiced, free and more lively than they'd ever had the choice to be, happy under the heavy rain.

For the first time in all their lifetimes, they were all free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, 女神の恵みを超え、雪の力を召喚して！ means 'I summon the power of ice, surpassing the benevolence of the goddesses!' I'm not too happy with it being in Japanese, honestly (I always think it sounds like a cop-out when you're writing for a JRPG, personally). But the Old English just really wasn't working out for me so here we are!
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


	19. 093. Illusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda.
> 
> Aight. This one is sad, I'll admit it.
> 
> Enjoy!

_093\. Illusion_

The painting that hung above the plateau of the grand staircase, hovering whether the path split in two and immediately before the eye as one stepped into the castle was perhaps my favourite painting of all the Castle.

The Queen to the right is golden blonde, long hair swirling around her, wide blue eyes staring adoringly into the King's eyes, which are equally as blue and he has hair similarly as blonde. Their hands meet below the completed Triforce, and there is such power in their figures, such strength in their stances. Their hands meet, her hair reaches out as if to cocoon him.

They were the first King and Queen of Hyrule; Zelda I clad all in brilliant white, and Link I, accompanied by his faithful Loftwing. They watch over all who enter and exit this castle, always, but the reminder of their eternal love is perhaps the most powerful.

The stone is cool under my fingertips; the winters' day outside pushes the air out of my lungs before I've even taken two steps over the frosted ground. The grass is sleeping under a thick layer of ice and snow, and the earth is hard beneath my feet. I'm in the West wing's outer cloister. Near the Chruch where it's always quiet, where the rich folk stay away from the judging eye of Hylia. I know I have nothing to hide from her.

The wall is built from a stone that looks like seashells. They say it was brought here by the King who sailed the open oceans for years. I dream of blue, sometimes. Of unceasing, endless blue. A peace beyond measure. The Queen was said to have treasured the stone so much she built a church from it just as she cherished her King; her Link.

But the stone feels rough beneath my fingers. I turn back, the click of my heels echoing loudly in the silent grounds. They haunt me.

It is warmer in the West wing's Golden Room. Up on the second floor, deep within the castle. There are no windows in this room, only the candles that would rival a fiery sunset for brightness and beauty. They say that Zelda IX would sit in here all day, all night, waiting for the King to come home during the turbulent days of the civil war. I am not sure why she never did anything. She merely waited in her palace of fire, hoping and praying but never doing anything to make her wishes a reality. Mother always said I was not like the others. I thought it was just a veiled insult, but perhaps she was correct.

I pass through this golden room, a palace of wasted prayers.

I walk up the next set of stairs, and there is the most terrifying object in the castle. A mask - said to be a replica. A horrid, twisted smile and a heart that has needles gouging out the sides. Bold purple and poisonous green stripes the surface of the veneered wood. It is a ghastly object, worn on the face of a King's enemy. The King who wasted a lifetime chasing this mask off the face of a straw man as his wife wasted away.

Life can be cruel.

I feel the polished wood of the bannister beneath my fingers as I take each step. Each step is so heavy. It feels as though the air is suddenly dense; it won't go into my lungs, won't let me move through it, won't give me the support I need to live. But I am walking. Somehow. The door opens, but I do not feel my hand twisting the ornate handle.

People fill the room. And with a bow, they leave as soon as they see me. Me, a girl. A girl with the power to clear a room full of nobles without a single word.

Perhaps I am blessed after all.

This room was once my favourite, many summers ago. It is bright, overlooks the rose garden, and it is wallpapered a yellow that verges on peach. I lose myself momentarily in the crystals of the chandeliers; even in winter, they cast light around the room as though a thousand little rainbows are dancing across the ceiling.

But my hands play with the wood. My nails scrape across the polished oak and fills the silent room with a sudden cacophonous clack.

The coffin is the only dark thing in the room. The wood is polished to perfection, each long plank of wood seamlessly blended into the next. It is fit for a Prince. A King.

A General.

There is a lump in my throat. The air is thick again. One moment I feel hot. The next I am frozen, right to the bone.

He is lying there. So peaceful. Peaceful as the last time I saw him. Chain mail still lies beneath his tunic. His boots have been cleaned and polished. His lips point up in the way they always did at the corners. Even now, he is smiling at me.

I move without realising to stand next to him. For one blissful moment, it is just like all those mornings I would wake up eager to see his face - waiting for when he'd appear in the morning and try not to give away how giddy I was with an overly bright smile or a blush.

His eyes do not open. His cheeks do not twitch with a smile. His ears are limp over his green hat.

He is dead. Really and truly.

My tears splash onto his face, so I move. They splash onto his green tunic instead. There is an unmistakable stain where the blood would not come all the way out of the cotton.

I tried. I did all I could to save him. I disguised myself in his camp, I fought alongside him - I did all I could to protect him! I knew that I was in love with him, and I knew that I would prove he was the Hero of our time no matter what it took!

I cannot hear my sobs.

I only feel the ripping in my chest.

He is the hero of our time. I am the hero of our time. We both destroyed the invaders. Yet only I now stand here.

I do not care for Hylia any longer. I have nothing to hide because I have nothing left. All I had now lies in this wooden box. There was so much I should have done, and yet nothing I could do.

The wood feels cold beneath my hot hands. He is cold under my caressing fingers. I take one hand in my own. It looks different. Older. Rougher.

I lay down the hand.

It is not him. But he is still everything to me. All I ever wanted in this life. All I was born for had gone.

I step back. The back of my hand burns. I can almost feel the light as it tingles. I look at it. It almost blinds me in its brilliance. And then, it fades.

The triangle is complete on my hand. Power, wisdom, and now courage.

All I want is one thing. It is the one thing I know I cannot have.

I reach for the golden, glowing triangle before me and let my heart sing for what it wants with all the power I have.

I hold my breath.

Nothing happens. He does not stir.

I do not hear my sobs as I collapse to the ground and cry with tears I do not have the strength for. My dress is tangled between my legs, but I cannot feel it. I no longer feel anything. All that remains is the fevered golden light that still burns my eyes and the illusion of a memory of the wish I can never have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more.


	20. 102. Twilight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
> 
> So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to end the series here for now. As you may have been able to tell he the abrupt break in updates, life had got in•sane recently, so I just don't have too much time for writing right now! So I'm really sorry about all the delays, but I will be back!
> 
> Again, if you've got requests in the interim then please just leave it in a review/PM me!
> 
> Enjoy!

_102\. Twilight_

The summons came in the morning. A few simple lines, scrawled onto yellowed, curled parchment.

_War has broken out on the Southern Border. Requesting the main army force for backup._

The words were hurried, and Link took them immediately to heart.

"Won't you at least consider alternative scenarios?" Zelda begged him, following him in his frantic exercise in packing belongings from around their room. "It could have been forced, or coerced; they could have mistaken the situation - perhaps a scouting team may be better—"

Link stopped suddenly, and Zelda almost crashed into him. He looked at her, affectionately and tiredly. "I am the bearer of the Triforce of Courage. You are the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom. That is where the two of us differ."

"And _as_ the bearer of wisdom, I'm making suggestions! Sensible ones!"

"And as the bearer of courage," he said, his tone conveying that he did not want to get into this argument again, "I'm telling you that I feel it. I feel that I'm needed there, as surely as you're needed here."

Zelda did not like the reply. She crossed her arms and huffed girlishly, retreating to a corner to skulk around as she watched him. He was just beyond arm's reach now, but she knew that he'd already gone to the front lines, mentally. It was as though an entirely different soul inhabited his body when the lust for battle rose in him. He was a handsome king, but a handsomer soldier after all; it was as though the goddesses had explicitly created him for such a purpose.

The pair were stiff at breakfast, but cordial during their morning meetings. It wouldn't do to signal how divided the couple were over this new war, and as they debated its worth with the Council, Zelda felt as though she were watching her body agree, hearing someone else use her voice to say the things that she so hated.

"I agree, Minister. War is indeed the correct course of action."

The words didn't even fall from her tongue unnaturally; it was as though she never felt them fall at all. But she watched her husband fiddle uneasily, and all too soon he was whisked from her into preparations.

"If we are fast, we should be gone at twilight."

The news was unwelcome to an already upset Zelda. She was pushed away for most of that day; she always was, in times of battle preparation. It only ever added ire to the pile of unpleasant emotions - _she_ was the Queen, _she_ had the Royal Bloodline, and _she_ was the ultimate power in the land! She realised that they thought her weakened by her sex and her station in life, but they were more wrong than they could possibly imagine.

Zelda was left to occupy herself however she saw fit for the hours she was unneeded, and she chose to retire to their chambers, so she could act as freely as she wished. She could pace in anger until the floorboards wore thin for how much anyone cared. That was precisely what she did to while away the anxious hours.

The door clicked open and closed quietly. Zelda did not stop pacing.

"Zel, it's time."

She brought herself to a halt and took in as much of a breath as she dared. She felt as though her entire body had been filled with the anxiety that she daren't let slip out. She looked at him, dressed in all his fine armour and that famed green hat. She couldn't bring herself to smile at the embellished design that she first met him in. She couldn't even bring herself to acknowledge the emotions it brought up.

He sighed and shifted his weight. "Zel, I'll— I'll be fine. I always am! I'm the Hero of this era, and the goddesses watch over me.

Zelda pursed her lips. "That does not make it any easier."

He nodded. "I know."

"Every time you leave, I can barely function. What if this time is the last time you leave? If you're captured, or injured and then disabled? What if the war goes on for years - decades, even - and we're forced to live apart for all that time?"

He brought her into a hug that would usually be warm; this, however, was entirely metallic and cold. Her face pressed uncomfortably against his shoulder pauldrons. "You know I love you Zel, but that was a perfect instance of you being stupid."

Zelda recoiled with a sharp gasp, affronted.

His roughish smile spread across his face, infecting the gleaming blue eyes that lay beneath fair lashes. "I'll be perfectly fine. And I'll probably see you in a few weeks - a couple of months at the most. So I know it's a lot to ask, but do try and carry on as normal, okay?"

Zelda turned away, sulking like a little girl again, but nodded.

"See?" Even he was talking to her as though she were a child now. "And I'll be back soon."

"Alright." She gave him a stern nod and put her arms as far around him as she could again. "I'll come to the gates and see you all off."

With a deep kiss that reflected how much they both yearned for more, they parted. She saw him on his beautiful (if temperamental) mare at the head of the army while she waved them all off.

As Link rode out over Hyrule plane, disappearing into the twilight, she wasn't sure if she'd ever see him again. Something in her heart told her she wouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review if you've got time, follow for future updates, and favourite if you enjoyed reading. Thank you and goodbye for now!

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate idea for this scenario was Link holding his daughter, seeing the Triforce mark show up, and realise that she would just be the next step in the cycle. But that's *super* depressing so here we are instead!
> 
> Please review if you've got the time and follow for more. Thanks!


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